NCDC data shows that the contiguous USA has not warmed in the past decade, summers are cooler, winters are getting colder
Posted on November 5, 2011 by Anthony Watts
Warming, for the USA seems pretty “stalled” to me in the last 10-15 years. Bear in mind that BEST uses the same data source for the USA, the USCHN2 data. Granted, this isn’t a standard 30 year climatology period we are examining, but the question about the last 10 years is still valid. “Aerosol masking” has been the reason given by the Team. Blame China.
See update [at end of post]: New comparison graph of US temperatures in 1999 to present added – quite an eye opener – Anthony
SOUTHERN ARIZONA – A number of locations feel record low temperatures this morning, says News 4 Meteorologist Chris Nallan.
Tucson, Douglas, Benson, and Safford are just a few that feel the extreme cold this morning. Tucson dropped to 23 breaking the previous record 24 set back in 1934. Douglas shatterd the record of 19 set back in 2004 dropping to 11. Benson also broke a record plunging down to 10 degrees early this morning.
(Reuters) – Freezing weather and snow paralyzed the border city of Ciudad Juarez on Friday, knocking out electricity and water in thousands of homes and closing roads and factories.
Record low temperatures hit the city, across from El Paso, Texas, from Tuesday, which is already suffering from some of the worst violence in Mexico’s drug war, fluctuating between -0.4 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-18 and -10 degrees Celsius).
“There have been cold temperatures in the past, but nothing that has lasted for so many days. It’s been 40 years since the city has seen an emergency like this,” said Efren Matamoros, head of the city’s civil protection service.
Units at 17 power stations — with 6,792 megawatts of generating capacity — in northern Mexico shut down due to the unusually cold weather, forcing the national electricity monopoly to ask factories to curb usage…….continues
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — Thirty-five animals at a zoo in the northern Mexico state of Chihuahua have frozen to death during the region’s coldest weather in six decades.
Largest US food distributor declares force majeure on fresh fruit and vegetables due to “devastating” freeze of “unprecedented magnitude”
Sysco, the largest wholesale food distributor in the US and primary supplier to most supermarket chains, has declared force majeure (the “act of God” clause) that allows suspension of contracted prices and supply of fresh fruit and vegetables due to the “unprecedented magnitude” of “devastating” and “extreme freezing temperatures” in a “very broad section of major growing regions in Mexico.” Sysco also reports “Florida is normally a major supplier for these items as well, but they have already been struck with severe freeze damage in December and January and up until now have had to purchase product out of Mexico to fill their commitments, that is no longer an option.”
Freezing temperatures have growers working overtime | Fresno, California
[…]
That protection hasn’t come cheap. Nilmeier uses wind machines to prevent his oranges from frost damage. The machines run on 15 gallons of propane fuel an hour. “I’ve got 6 of them out there and we’ve been averaging about 8 hours of wind machine running per night. So I’m looking between 16 and 17,000 dollars a night,” said Nilmeier.
…The citrus industry is estimated to be worth more than $342 million in Fresno County according to the Agriculture Department. The County’s citrus industry loss more than $117 million in the last major freeze in 2007, a financial tragedy growers don’t want to see again.
Mandarins suffered the worst damage from the more than four weeks of below freezing temperatures that struck the citrus belt this winter.
California Citrus Mutual (CCM) estimated Wednesday that approximately 20% of this season’s mandarin crop will be lost to frost damage.
Mandarins is about a $100 million a year crop in Tulare County.
The general consensus across the industry is positive in respect to fruit quality considering the obstacles growers were faced with this season.
However, the more than 25 days of temperatures dipping at or below freezing cost growers millions of dollars. The number of freeze nights was a record.
Temperatures many times dipped below 26 degrees, but conditions were good enough that many growers were able to raise those temperatures 3 to 4 degrees, above safe levels.
Temperatures below 28 degrees for more than four hours can cause serious damage.
Growers have spent on average $300-$400 per acre on frost protection, totaling approximately $100 million to preserve the 2011-2012 crop and ensure only quality fruit reaches the consumer, stated Citrus Mutual in a press release.
Frost protection was utilized in December and January in order to raise grove temperatures to 32 degrees, the threshold for mandarin varieties.
[…]
Damage to the navel crop was significantly less with an estimated 10% of the crop damaged. Navel oranges have a much higher tolerance of cold temperatures, with a threshold of 27 degrees versus 32 degrees for mandarin varieties.
Forget the jack o’ lanterns: With this week’s early snowstorms from Wyoming to Colorado – and forecasts for a stellar season, thanks to La Niña – skiers and snowboarders are dreaming of carving turns down powder-draped slopes.
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
410 PM PST WED NOV 24 2010
.DISCUSSION…AS OF 3:10 PM PST WEDNESDAY…FORECAST FOCUS IS ON RECORD COLD TEMPERATURES TONIGHT ALONG WITH FREEZE/FROST ADVISORIES.
CONTINUED COLD ON THURSDAY NIGHT/FRIDAY MORNING…THEN RAIN BY
SATURDAY.
FOLKS WILL REMEMBER THANKSGIVING 2010 FOR ITS RECORD COLD
TEMPERATURES (AND DEEP SNOW IN THE SIERRA IF YOUR A SKIER). ALREADY
BROKE RECORD LOWS TODAY FOR THE CITY GOING BACK 104 YEARS. CONDITIONS ARE RIPE FOR AN EVEN COLDER NIGHT TONIGHT. CURRENTLY LATE AFTERNOON DEWPOINTS ARE RUNNING IN THE UPPER TEENS TO LOWER/MID 20S. RULE OF THUMB SUGGESTS THATS HOW COLD OVERNIGHT LOWS COULD GET IN AN IDEAL SET UP. ONLY LIMITING FACTOR AT THIS POINT IS WINDS ARE STILL
RELATIVELY STRONG…EVEN AT THE SURFACE AND ABOVE THE BOUNDARY
LAYER. DOWN HERE IN MONTEREY UNDER FULL SUNSHINE WE CANT CRACK 50
DEGREES THIS AFTERNOON. EXPECT TEMPERATURES TO PLUMMET AS SOON AS
THE SUN GOES DOWN THIS EVENING. CURRENT TEMP IN DOWNTOWN SF IS 50
DEGREES. THE RECORD LOW FOR TOMORROW IS 42 DEGREES AND GOES BACK 118 YEARS! WE MAY BREAK THAT RECORD SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT. QUICK GLANCE OF DATA SUGGESTS ONLY TWO TIMES IN NOVEMBER THAT THE TEMPERATURE HAS FALLEN BELOW 40 DEGREES IN THE CITY. FREEZE AND FROST ADVISORIES ARE UP ACROSS THE DISTRICT TO HANDLE THIS COLD
SPELL. GOOD NEWS IS CONDITIONS ARE DRY ACROSS THE STATE FOR LAST
MINUTE TRAVEL PLANS TONIGHT INTO THURSDAY MORNING.
The heavy snow showers that hit Chicago Saturday have left the area, but portions of northwest Indiana could see an additional eight inches of lake effect snow before the system completely passes Sunday afternoon.
The snowstorm dropped more than five inches on the Chicago area Saturday and canceled more than 325 flights.
Bitter cold temperatures are expected to replace the snow this week.
A winter storm advisory remains in effect until 6 a.m. Sunday for Lake County, Ind., according to the National Weather Service’s website. The advisory means periods of snow will cause travel difficulties and motorists should prepare for snow-covered roads and limited visibilities.
Lake effect snow along the Lake Michigan shore is expected to shift from the Illinois shore into Indiana, the weather service said. As much as five additional inches of snow is possible, but amounts may vary greatly over short distances.
Further east, a more serious lake effect snow warning will remain in effect until 9 a.m. for Porter County, Ind., the weather service said. As much as eight additional inches of snow are possible in this area, which includes Valparaiso, Ind.
Lake-effect snow showers typically align in bands that can produce several inches of snow per hour for several hours, the weather service said. Visibility can drop to zero in minutes and travel is strongly discouraged.
In Chicago, the heaviest snow has moved out of the area, but flurries remain possible until 9 a.m. Sunny skies are expected in the afternoon, but temperatures will only reach about 23 degrees.
The weather service reported more than five inches of snow fell at O’Hare Airport Saturday — breaking the old record for Dec. 4 snow set in 1964.
More than 325 flights were canceled at O’Hare Airport and “a few delays” were reported at Midway Airport, according to the city’s Department of Aviation.
Bitter cold temperatures are expected to move into the area the rest of the week, the weather service said. Highs are only expected to be in the low-20s early this week, and single digit lows are possible.
CHICAGO – A powerful winter storm roared across the upper Midwest on Sunday with high winds and mounds of snow closing roads in several states and canceling more than 1,400 flights in Chicago.
At least one weather-related death was reported Sunday as the storm system that dumped nearly 2 feet of snow in parts of Minnesota and caused the Metrodome’s inflatable, Teflon roof to collapse moved east. The Minnesota Vikings-New York Giants game was pushed to Monday night at Detroit’s Ford Field.
A blizzard warning was in effect Sunday for parts of eastern Iowa, southeastern Wisconsin, northwestern Illinois, and northern Michigan, according to the National Weather Service. Surrounding areas, including Chicago, were under winter storm warnings. “It’s going to be blustery,” said Ben Deubelbeiss, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville, Ill.
The winter weather, with blowing snow that severely limited visibility, wreaked havoc on air and road travel. In the Chicago area, wind gusts of up to 50 mph, temperatures in the teens, wind chills well below zero were expected along with up to 8 inches of snow.
More than 1,200 flights were canceled at O’Hare International Airport and more than 250 were canceled at Midway International Airport, Chicago Department of Aviation spokeswoman Karen Pride said. Both airports expected more cancellations and reported significant delays.
Major highways in several states were closed due to poor driving conditions and accidents.
US east coast in chaos following rare October snowstorm
A rare October snowstorm that also cut power to more than 2 million homes and killed at least three people.
The heaviest snow was recorded in Western Massachusetts, where 27.8 inches was measured in Plainfield, according to the National Weather Service. Just 45 minutes northwest of New York City, in West Milford, New Jersey, 19 inches of snow fell.
“A historic October storm is still crushing New England with heavy snow and howling winds,” meteorologist Meghan Evans said on Accuweather.com on Sunday.
[…]
Snow fell on Saturday, some at record amounts, across most of Pennsylvania well into Massachusetts after blanketing parts of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.
The unseasonably early storm broke a snow record that had stood since 1969 for New York’s Central Park, which received 2.9 inches of snow, the National Weather Service said.
Record snowfall for “Climate Justice Day” in New York
Posted on October 30, 2011 by Anthony Watts
It just doesn’t get any better than this. The Occupy Wall Street Mob had a “Climate Justice Day” scheduled for today. I don’t think they figured on a “Nightmare on Wall Street” irony like this.
VANCOUVER — Vancouver has a chance to break a 25-year-old cold weather record on Tuesday by a chilly four degrees.
Environment Canada forecaster Gary Dickinson predicts a daytime high of -6° C on Tuesday, which would smash the record -1.9° C high of Nov. 23, 1985, by more than four degrees.
“There is an Arctic ridge of high pressure over the entire province. Temperatures are chilly and below normal,” he said Monday.
Dickinson said conditions are expected to remain cool until warmer temperatures arrive on Thursday night, bringing rain.
Vancouver is expected to reach a high of -2° C on Monday, which is unseasonably cold, but a lot more agreeable than other places in the country.
It was a frigid -26° C in Fort Nelson on Monday; in Edmonton, site of Sunday’s Grey Cup game, it was -25° C.
Environment Canada is roughly analogous to a combination of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Environment Canada had a 1.07- billion-dollar budget in 2010, which has now been cut 20 percent to 854 million dollars for 2011-12. The EPA and NOAA budgets for 2010 were 10.3 billion and 5.5 billion dollars, respectively.
Some 776 Environment Canada employees have been told their jobs may be terminated. That’s 11 percent of the current staff in a government department that has been a favourite target for budget and staff cuts for the past decade, to the point where it was barely functional, said Duck.
Computer-modeled tropical fish to boom in Canada, while actual tropical fish freeze to death in Florida
Climate change could cause drastic drop in fish catches: UBC – News1130 [linked]
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A new UBC study suggests climate change could create a boom in tropical fish species in BC, but overall result in a drop of up to 35 per cent in catches in some places due to increasing acid and decreasing oxygen in the world’s oceans.
Professor William Cheung with UBC’s Fisheries Centre presented his findings Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
The predictions were generated by a computer simulator
2012: Florida Fish Farms Struggle With Recent Cold Snap [linked]
“The last three winters in a row it seems like we have been just clobbered,” said David Boozer, executive director of the Florida Tropical Fish Farms Association, a group that counts 231 farmers as members.
This article from the Orange County Register is by Dr. Gabriel Calzada, professor of applied environmental economics in Spain and lead author of a 2009 study detailing the economic costs of Spain’s experiment with the green economy.
Anyone who cares about the U.S. economy is breathing easier now that cap and tax appears to be on the political garbage barge, but don’t be so sure. The White House is still pursuing its carbon agenda through regulation, albeit with almost no public attention, and a new study shows the damage that is already being done.
Yesterday the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a highly regarded federal energy advisory body, released an exhaustive “special assessment” of this covert program. NERC estimates that the Environmental Protection Agency’s pending electric utility regulations will subtract between 46 and 76 gigawatts of generating capacity from the U.S. grid by 2015. To put those numbers in perspective, the worst-case scenario would amount to a reduction of about 7.2% of national power generation, and almost all of it will hit coal-fired plants, the workhorse that supplies a little over half of U.S. electricity.
Assuming that two thirds of the productivity increase in mid-western states from 1990 to 2004 was climatically driven, then the productivity decline in this region due to Solar Cycle 24 is expected to be of the order of 30%. The total US agricultural productivity decrease would be less than that at possibly 20%, equating to the export share of US agricultural production.
A senior House Democrat from Tennessee issued the first congressional report on geoengineering Friday, just as delegates from 193 nations approved a ban on such research under a global biodiversity treaty.
The debate over whether humans should explore ways to manipulate the climate has taken on increased urgency over the past year, as efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming have encountered political roadblocks in the United States and elsewhere.
The measure adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity, which recently concluded in Nagoya, Japan, states “that no climate-related geo-engineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place, until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity and associated social, economic and cultural impacts, with the exception of small-scale scientific research studies” under controlled circumstances.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Thursday killed legislation that would have stripped the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from large factories, electric power companies and automobiles.
The defeat of the Republican-inspired measure knocked down the most serious legislative challenge the EPA faced on regulating planet-warming gases, although it may have to contend with lawsuits from companies and industry groups.
In a procedural move, the Senate voted 53-47 to block the bill offered by Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski.
President Obama said Wednesday that policymakers must not “ignore” global warming science, but he declined to provide a full-throated endorsement of upcoming Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse-gas rules.
Obama, speaking at a White House press conference the day after huge GOP electoral gains, called for bipartisan cooperation on energy policy. He said he’s open to several ideas on climate instead of cap-and-trade legislation that he acknowledged won’t move in coming years.
The climate issue remains front-and-center because EPA is moving ahead to limit emissions under its existing powers.
“With respect to the EPA, the smartest thing for us to do is to see if we can get Democrats and Republicans in a room who are serious about energy independence, and are serious about keeping our air clean and our water clean and dealing with the issue of greenhouse gases, and seeing are there ways that we can make progress in the short-term and invest in technologies in the long-term that start giving us the tools to reduce greenhouse gases and solve this problem,” Obama said when asked about EPA regulation of heat-trapping gases.
But Obama also clearly affirmed EPA’s right to act, citing the landmark 2007 Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for the agency to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Cap-and-trade legislation that would have largely supplanted the upcoming EPA rules collapsed in Congress this year.
“The EPA is under a court order that says greenhouse gases are a pollutant that falls under their jurisdiction. One of the things that is very important for me is not to have us ignore the science, but rather to find ways that we can solve these problems that don’t hurt the economy, that encourage the development of clean energy in this country, that in fact may give us opportunities to create entire new industries and create jobs and that put us in a competitive posture around the world,” Obama said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Stymied in Congress, the Obama administration is moving unilaterally to clamp down on greenhouse emissions, announcing plans for new power plants and oil refinery emission standards over the next year.
In an announcement posted on the agency’s website late Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson said the aim was to better cope with pollution contributing to climate change.
“We are following through on our commitment to proceed in a measured and careful way to reduce GHG pollution that threatens the health and welfare of Americans,” Jackson said in a statement. She said emissions from power plants and oil refineries constitute about 40 percent of the greenhouse gas pollution in this country.
Climate Change: Plaintiffs challenge agency’s plan, based on ‘endangerment’ decision
Some 24 states, environmental groups, trade associations, and conservative organizations sued the Environmental Protection Agency this week, challenging its plan to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
The lawsuits would block or modify EPA’s attempt to reduce emissions from large industrial greenhouse gas sources. The agency’s regulation is based on its “endangerment” finding that greenhouse gases, including CO2, endanger public health and should therefore be regulated. Suits came from those on both sides of the issue: groups that back EPA’s approach but want to make it broader, and industry groups and states that oppose EPA’s use of the Clean Air Act to cut CO2 emissions.
In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that EPA could regulate CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. As a result, EPA said last December that it would do so and began the regulatory process for controlling CO2 and five other greenhouse gases emitted by vehicles, electric utilities, chemical companies, and other sources (C&EN, Dec. 14, 2009, page 7).
Since then, EPA has moved ahead with final regulations for motor vehicles and is just now developing regulations for industrial sources. The deadline for filing litigation to block the agency was Aug. 2.
The agency, however, remains adamant in its push to move ahead. When recently challenged by petitions from 10 states, trade associations, and conservative organizations that opposed EPA on scientific grounds, agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson denied the petitions, saying, “The endangerment finding is based on years of science from the U.S. and around the world.” She chided the petitioners, urging them to join “the vast majority of the American people who want to see more green jobs, more clean energy innovation.”
The importance of EPA’s proposed regulation grows as Congress appears unable to muster support for legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Just last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) withdrew a weak energy bill from Senate consideration. The bill included a few energy provisions, but it primarily proposed to remove a cap on offshore oil spill liability, which Republicans and a smattering of Democrats opposed. Earlier, Reid also dropped efforts to introduce a cap-and-trade bill, saying it lacked sufficient support (C&EN, Aug. 2, page 12).
“When recently challenged by petitions from 10 states, trade associations, and conservative organizations that opposed EPA on scientific grounds, agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson denied the petitions, saying, “The endangerment finding is based on years of science from the U.S. and around the world.” She chided the petitioners, urging them to join “the vast majority of the American people who want to see more green jobs, more clean energy innovation.””
The state of Texas has filed a new lawsuit against the EPA and the climate rules slate to take effect on Jan. 2.
Following the rejection of a request for a stay of the EPA rules by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Texas has filed its new effort to stay the rules in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
In petitioning the court to review the EPA’s action, Texas claims:
The GHG SIP Call is contrary to both the Clean Air Act and the Constitution. Recognizing the proper role of the States, the Clean Air Act declares pollution prevention to be “the primary responsibility of States and local governments,” and not the federal government. 42 U.S.C. § 7401(a)(3). EPA rejects that approach and seeks to deprive Texas of its right to manage its air resources. It does so by unlawfully replacing a properly-approved Texas SIP, despite Texas’ strong track record of reducing pollution and improving air quality in the State. The United States Constitution also denies the federal government the authority to commandeer the States to carry out its ends, but here EPA attempts just that by threatening Texas with severe economic harm unless the State adopts, on an unrealistic timeline, EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations, which are themselves unlawful.
Continues…………
——————————————————————————————————————–
This is really about States sovereignty vs rampant federal dictatorship.
The US Environmental Protection Agency can enforce rules over emissions related to climate change while a lawsuit opposing them is pending, a federal appeals court said.
Industry groups and coal mining companies, including Massey Energy Co., last year asked for a review of the agency’s rules on greenhouse gasses and carbon emissions. The EPA rules challenged were published on the Federal Register in December 2009, according to the lawsuit.
The US Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington today denied a request by the challengers to put enforcement of the climate change rules on hold while the lawsuit is pending.
“Petitioners have not satisfied the stringent standards required for a stay pending court review,” the appeals panel said. “Petitioners have not shown that the harms they allege are ‘certain’ rather than speculative.”
The ruling may put a stop to some construction projects scheduled to begin in 2011, said Scott Segal of Bracewell Giuliani, a law and lobbying firm that represent utilities, refiners, cement companies and manufacturers.
“In light of the substantial disagreement over whether federal, state and local regulators can be ready in time to impose preconstruction permit requirements by early January, the court may have ensured an effective construction moratorium for industrial and power projects,” Segal said in an e-mailed statement.
“This is a victory for every American who wants better gas mileage and cleaner cars and factories,” David Doniger, policy director for the Climate Center at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an e-mailed statement. “It means cleaner air, a stronger economy and a healthier future for us all.”
The case is Coalition for Responsible Regulation Inc. v. US Environmental Protection Agency, 09-1322, US District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).
A U.S. appellate court Friday turned down a request from utilities, oil refiners and the state of Texas to delay the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Conservative senators vowed Monday to strip President Barack Obama of his power to regulate greenhouse gases, in a move that would cripple US efforts on climate change if successful.
Eleven Republican senators introduced a bill that would stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases, which scientists blame for global warming, without explicit approval by Congress.
Under Obama, the federal agency has steadily increased standards on gas emissions. The Republicans accused Obama of circumventing Congress, where a so-called “cap-and-trade” bill to mandate emission curbs died last year.
The Obama administration Wednesday repeated its threat to veto legislation that would curb its ability to regulate greenhouse gases.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said that the White House continues to oppose any efforts from Capitol Hill to hamstring her agency on climate change.
“What has been said from the White House is that the president’s advisors would advise him to veto any legislation that passed that would take away EPA’s greenhouse gas authority,” Jackson told reporters on Capitol Hill. “Nothing has changed.”
A U.S. federal appeals court has delivered a decisive defeat to states and industry groups that had challenged the scientific and legal underpinnings of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) decision to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants under the federal Clean Air Act.
Reaction to the decision has split along predictable lines. The Obama Administration, environmentalists and many Democrats in Congress celebrated, with Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) calling the ruling a “resounding victory for science.” In contrast, many industry groups and Republican political figures have vowed to reverse the decision, either in Congress or the courts. “The debate to address climate change should take place in the U.S. Congress and … not impose additional burdens on businesses,” Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said in a statement.
Reuters report provides better coverage, from WUWT:-
Court upholds EPA’s greenhouse gas rules for autos – but lacks jurisdiction on stationary sources like power plants
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously ruled that the EPA’s finding that carbon dioxide is a public danger and setting limits for emissions from cars and light trucks were “neither arbitrary nor capricious.”
In the 82-page ruling, the court also found that the EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide regulations is “unambiguously correct.”
The court also said it lacked jurisdiction to review the timing and scope of greenhouse gas rules that affect stationary sources like new coal-burning power plants and other large industrial sources.
Puzzler: After the D.C. Circuit court explicitly said that they didn’t “re-weigh the scientific evidence before EPA and reach our own conclusion”, English major Chris Mooney suggests that they subjected “denier” claims to “serious and careful intellectual scrutiny”
Thus, we are faced with a statutory term—“air
pollutant”—that the Supreme Court has determined
unambiguously encompasses greenhouse gases. This phrase is
preceded by the expansive term “any,” a word the Court held
“underscores” Congress’s intent to include “all” air pollutants
“of whatever stripe.” See id. Absent some compelling reason to
think otherwise, “ ‘any’ . . . means any,” Ford v. Mabus, 629
F.3d 198, 206 (D.C. Cir. 2010), and Petitioners have given us no
reason to construe that word narrowly here. To the contrary:
given both the statute’s plain language and the Supreme Court’s
decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, we have little trouble
concluding that the phrase “any air pollutant” includes all
regulated air pollutants, including greenhouse gases.
From then on “any air pollutant” is the basis of considerable analysis.
Page 71 pdf:-
In short, although we agree with Industry Petitioners that
phrases like “any air pollutant” are, in certain contexts, capable
of a more limited meaning, they have failed to identify any
reasons that the phrase should be read narrowly here. Nor do we
know of one. We thus conclude that EPA’s 34-year-old
interpretation of the PSD permitting triggers is statutorily
compelled: a source must obtain a permit if it emits major
amounts of any regulated pollutant and is located in an area that
is in attainment or unclassifiable for any NAAQS pollutant.
Page 81 pdf
State Petitioners fail to cite any record evidence to suggest that they are adversely affected by global climate change. This is in stark contrast to the evidence put forward in Massachusetts v. EPA, where the Commonwealth submitted unchallenged affidavits and declarations showing that 1) rising sea tides due to global warming had “already begun to swallow Massachusetts’ coastal land,” and 2) “[t]he severity of that injury will only increase over the course of the next century.” Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. at 522–23. These specific, factual submissions were key to the standing analysis in Massachusetts v. EPA: the Court held that “petitioners’ submissions as they pertain to Massachusetts have satisfied the most demanding standards of the adversarial process.”
***************************************************************************************************************
My goodness,
“rising sea tides due to global warming had “already begun to swallow Massachusetts’ coastal land””
And
“[t]he severity of that injury will only increase over the course of the next century.”
The “sound science” was never assessed by the three judges. From page 32 pdf of the court brief:-
In the end, Petitioners are asking us to re-weigh the
scientific evidence before EPA and reach our own conclusion.
This is not our role. As with other reviews of administrative
proceedings, we do not determine the convincing force of
evidence, nor the conclusion it should support, but only whether
the conclusion reached by EPA is supported by substantial
evidence when considered on the record as a whole. See, e.g.,
New York v. EPA, 413 F.3d 3, 30 (D.C. Cir. 2005). When EPA
evaluates scientific evidence in its bailiwick, we ask only that it
take the scientific record into account “in a rational manner.”
Am. Petroleum Inst. v. Costle, 665 F.2d 1176, 1187 (D.C. Cir.
1981). Industry Petitioners have not shown that EPA failed to do
so here.
The “substantial evidence” and “scientific record” (not considered by the judges) is coming under increasing dispute outside the court however due to the lack of substance in the former and omissions in the latter.
U.S. President Barack Obama will rely on the federal Clean Air Act as he tries to make good on his latest vow to address the threat of global warming.
Obama will direct the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Act to finish a plan setting carbon pollution limits on new power plants by September 20 this year and draft a plan for existing power plants by June 2014.
Legal challenges are almost guaranteed for federal rules written under the Clean Air Act. Industry groups and coal-reliant states have already signaled that they will challenge power plant regulations if they feel the EPA produces a plan that has overly strict timetables or emissions limits that “violate the spirit of the Clean Air Act,” one industry representative said.
The following are major recent legal challenges to the Clean Air Act [details omitted]:
Massachusetts vs. EPA, 2007:
American electric power vs. Connecticut, 2011:
Coalition for responsible regulation vs. EPA, 2012:
Eme Homer City generation vs. EPA, 2012:
Las brisas energy center LLC vs. EPA, 2012:
Center for biological diversity vs. EPA, 2012:
This week’s big global warming kerfluffle comes from the EPA’s Inspector General, who says the agency broke the law in preparation of its landmark 2009 “Endangerment Finding” from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Subsequent to making this finding, according to an infamous 2007 Supreme Court decision, the Agency must regulate emissions, presumably to the point which they no longer cause endangerment.
The IG believes that the EPA ran afoul of a rider to the 2001 appropriations bill that has been variously called the “Data Quality Act” or the “Information Quality Act”. Put simply, the accepted legal interpretation of this two-line piece of legislation is that a federal document that is a “highly influential science assessment” must undergo rigorous peer-review.
EPA based its endangerment finding on its own “Technical Support Document” (TSD), a weighty tome that drew heavily from the United Nations’ latest (2007) climate compendium, and also from a summary document from federal climatologists called “Global Climate Change Impacts on the United States”.
Like most groupthink projects, these two documents have numerous problems indicative of shoddy peer review……..
The U.S. Political Tsunami That Destroyed The AGW Faux-Science & IPCC Agenda
The monumental changes that occurred on November 2, 2010 are simply stunning in the widespread repudiation of radical leftist/progressive/liberal/Democrat politics that has brought the U.S. to the brink of Greece-dom. For sure, the American populace is totally disgusted with the big government, big labor and big business crony capitalism agendas that have been pushed by the country’s elites over the past few years, to the severe disadvantage of the average American.
The vast majority of Americans don’t want to follow the paths of such banana republics as Greece, California, New York and Illinois. These are failed states, which remain committed to higher taxes, higher spending, higher welfare and higher levels of regulatory control that only benefits special interests, such as big labor, big bureaucracy and big business.
The American revulsion of the left’s extremism is best captured in this massive, unprecedented modern-day loss by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. That rejection of extremism was embellished with the Democrat loss of 6 U.S. Senate seats, which means Obama no longer has a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
[US Congress Repub – Dem breakdown pre/post election]
The top Republican on the House climate change panel that Democrats created in 2007 is urging GOP leaders not to kill the committee when they take control next year.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) says Republican leaders should recast the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming as a check against Environmental Protection Agency rules he calls economically harmful.
Republicans will eliminate a House panel designed to explore issues related to climate change, incoming House Speaker John Boehner announced on Wednesday, arguing that the committee is unnecessary and that its eradication would cut government waste.
“The global warming committee doesn’t need to be a separate committee,” Boehner told reporters. “We believe the Science Committee is more than capable of handling this issue, and in the process we’ll save several million dollars.”
The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which was created by Nancy Pelosi in 2007, was designed to provide members of Congress with a prominent forum for discussion on developing climate-change science and supply information about the global race for clean-energy technology. Over the course of its three-year existence, the panel held 75 hearings, according to Bloomberg News.
The scientific community largely sees global warming as a legitimate and growing problem brought about in part by human activity. Many Republican lawmakers question that scientific consensus.
As metro Atlanta’s temperatures grow colder, the demand for heat is, well, heating up.
A day after hundreds of people queued up outside a Marietta community center to apply for assistance with heat and power bills, hopeful applicants began lining up again around midnight, waiting in the sub-freezing temperatures for the doors to open Thursday morning.
This time, however, officials let those in line come into the Mansour Center on Roswell Street an hour early at 7:30 and get relief from temperatures that dropped to 27 degrees.
“We’re freezing,” said Lecher Eady, a Marietta mother who arrived at midnight seeking help with her bills. “Our hands are cold, our feet are cold.”
Eady, the mother of triplets in diapers, said she has been out of work since August.
“I’ve had three jobs this year, and I’ve been laid off from all three,” she said. “I’m grateful just to get any type of help they’ll give me.”
Eady said she is trying to start a nonprofit organization, “Babies Need Diapers,” that would provide diapers to low-income single mothers.
“We have assistance for food, we have assistance for clothing, but we don’t have assistance for diapers,” she said. “That’s my biggest struggle right now.”
Joining Eady near the front of the line that had grown to about 30 people by 7:30 was Isata Kamara, a single mom of a 3-year-old.
“My electric bill and my gas bill are going to get cut off because I don’t have the money right now,” said Kamara, who recently lost her job.
“I saw it on the news and decided to come up here because I really need the help,” she said.
Those news reports Wednesday night showed hundreds of people who lined up around the building throughout the day on Wednesday. Channel 2 Action News reported that ambulances were called for at least two people who had difficulty dealing with Wednesday’s cold temperatures.
In DeKalb County, Atlanta police were called to the Atlanta DeKalb Human Services Building on Warren Street Wednesday morning after “loud arguing” broke out among a large crowd gathered to apply for energy assistance, according to police dispatchers.
Lakesha Charles, who has been out of work for two years, was number 16 in the Marietta line Thursday, which, she said, is “better than number 100.”
The mother of six said she “heard it was ridiculous” on Wednesday, when only 30 people at a time were let into the assistance center.“Hopefully, we can get in and get help,” she said.
“I saw it on the news and decided to come up here because I really need the help,” Kamara said. “You’ve got to stand in line, because it’s not going to come to you.”
That heating assistance will come in handy next week, when a surge of cold Canadian air will send overnight lows in metro Atlanta plummeting to the low 20s, with afternoon highs warming only into the mid-40s.
Early Frost Kills Crops in South, Drives Up Prices as Growers Try to Shield Produce
An unusually early blast of cold air is cloaking the southeast, forcing farmers to toil through the night to save their livestock and crops of strawberries, tender green beans and sweet corn.
In parts of Florida, hit Tuesday morning with a freeze not seen this early since 1937, some growers were already reporting severe frost burn and ruined plantings, reducing supply and driving up prices for winter vegetables amid the holiday season.
Florida growers endured a freeze and difficult spell of weather in January, “but now, the timing is more unfortunate because we are gearing up to put vegetables out for peoples’ holiday meals,” said Lisa Lochridge, spokeswoman for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association. The association was still determining total loss on Tuesday.
In Palm Beach County, the nation’s top producer of winter vegetables, the price of a bushel of green beans soared 62% Tuesday to between $24 and $26, compared to $14 to $16 over the weekend, said J.D. Poole, vice president of Pioneer Growers Cooperative in Belle Glade, Fla.
Frigid air from Canada pushed into the southeast Monday, bringing snow to mountains in Tennessee and West Virginia, cancelling schools in parts of North Carolina, and ushering in temperatures 15 to 20 degrees below normal in some places. The National Weather Service issued a freeze warning through Wednesday morning for most of Florida, the southeast corner of Alabama and southern Georgia.
While farming’s peak season is over in many regions of the country, it’s still in full swing throughout parts of the south—meaning farmers can get caught off guard by an early freeze. In Iron City, Ga., cattle farmer Yancy Trawick has erected a wall of hay in his field as a fort to protect his 75 newborn calves from the wind. “This is rough on them,” he said.
In Loxahatchee, Fla., workers at Hundley Farms were up all night into Tuesday, running warm water between crops of sweet corn and green beans to fend off frost. Starting at 3:40 a.m., six helicopters flew at varying levels back and forth over Hundley’s fields an in attempt to push the layer of warm air down on the crops, said Tom Perryman, crop supervisor.
Still, Tuesday morning revealed that about 30% of the crops were hurt by freeze, with delicate green beans the worse off, he said, adding, “And still have to get through tonight. I can’t remember a time when we had a freeze by Dec. 7,” he said.
Ms. Lochridge, of the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, said Florida’s growers of heartier citrus fruits have so far escaped any notable freeze damage, while some growers of strawberries, tomatoes, green beans, and sweet corn were reporting the tell-tale signs of frost burn.
In Belle Glade, fifth-generation farmer Stewart Stein said his sweet corn began “turning blackish green and slimy” right before his eyes Tuesday. As for his green beans, “the leaves will start drooping on the beans and wilting down,” he said.
He estimates he lost 150 acres of corn and 45 acres of green beans to frost. “It’ll take the wind out of your sails, that’s for sure,” he said
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Florida: Farmers count losses after third December freeze
“This much cold in December it’s unheard of.”
…
Workers spent the night monitoring the fields and watching to see how long the freezing temperatures would hold. Temperatures dipped to 34 degrees in West Palm Beach and 25 degrees in Fort Pierce overnight, shattering records of 38 degrees set in 1928 and 34 degrees set in 1977, respectively.
…
Ryan’s father, Rick Roth, said the cold weather the area has seen this December is “totally a one-in-one-hundred year event. People are saying this hasn’t happened since the 1930s.”
As reported on NBC Nightly News 12/6/10, a record number of manatees died in 2010 due to unusually cold water.
According to Katie Tripp, Ph.D., Director of Science and Conservation, SaveTheManatee.org:
“Through November 19th [2010], 685 manatees have been confirmed dead in the state of Florida, representing more than 13% of the species’ estimated minimum population. This far surpasses the record of 429 deaths set in 2009, and there is still one month left in the year. Although 2010 started with ideal conditions that allowed a record number of manatees to be counted during the annual aerial survey (5,076), the same cold weather that facilitated the count began causing unprecedented levels of mortality in the subsequent weeks. In total, nearly 400 manatees are believed to have died from this lingering event, shattering the previous record of 56 cold-related deaths. In addition, several dozen manatees suffering from cold stress were rescued around the state. Although cold-related deaths are considered a natural cause, the events of this winter highlight the vulnerability of our state’s manatee population, and reinforce the importance of safeguarding winter habitat and minimizing human-related threats to this species.”
The cold weather isn’t just killing crops, it’s also taking its toll on marine life.
Florida Freeze: Dead fish turn up in Cocoa
Dead fish at the Marina at Cocoa Villiage are washing ashore in numbers too large to count.
“One of the local fisherman said that it’s the catfish. And the water’s just too cold for them. And they’re dying,” said Cocoa resident Lisa Michalski.
Michalski has only lived in Florida for three months, and said she wasn’t expecting such cold weather. She said she first spotted the dying fish on Tuesday, after a night of freezing temperatures.
Has there ever been a better illustration of the gulf between America’s political elites and Middle America?
This weekend, a delegation to the United Nation’s Climate Summit in the resort city of Cancun, Mexico that included Washington negotiators, Michigan faculty, and Ann Arbor students returned to declare that they had come to an agreement to transfer $100 billion — that’s BILLION — to Third World countries to combat catastrophic global warming. The announcement came as a brutal winter snowstorm buried the Midwest in record snowdrifts that collapsed the Minneapolis Metrodome, drove temperatures to record lows in the south, and killed five people in the Metro Detroit area
How many people has global warming killed?
Despite last year’s Climategate scandal that have gutted climate science credibility, the United States increased funding three-fold in 2010 to a staggering $1.7 billion-a-year to fight the phantom global warming scare at a time when the country’s federal and state budgets are hobbled by a loss of revenue from the Great Recession.
Is global warming a greater threat than state bankruptcy?
While the Cancun delegation studied the diversion of another $100 billion in tax dollars to the help Third World governments build windmills, local Michigan governments like Oakland County cut its snow and salt crews by a third to meet budget — crews that were sorely missing Monday morning as semi-trucks jackknifed on slick roads, clotting roadways and forcing backup for miles.
Is global warming a greater threat than road safety?
In Atlanta last week, hundreds of poor residents shivered in line for home-heating assistance as the mercury in southern Georgia plunged into the ’20s. Indeed, Cancun itself greeted its warming saviors with record low temperatures while climate delegates met amidst hotels full of resort vacationers honked off by 50-degree temperatures.
This is madness.
The University of Michigan sent 30 professors, students, and alumni to the Cancun Summit. “Rather than only learning in the classroom about the most complex and contentious environmental negotiations that we have ever faced, the students will get a first-hand look at how such an international treaty is worked out,” said Andrew Hoffman, a professor in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment. Freezing, overtaxed Michigan voters may wonder whether if this is the best use of their U-M subsidy dollars.
“Last year, the masses in Copenhagen were alive with the idealistic belief that a solution to climate change was at hand. This year, the masses in Cancun are alert to the nearest bar with a deal on margaritas,” sniffed one U-M student in Cancun about the vacationers around him. “Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against tanned bikini clad bodies or margaritas. At the same time, it does give one pause when the vast majority of people just outside the conference walls are oblivious to the debate which could have a drastic impact not only on their own lives but the lives of future generations.”
Maybe these students would have learned more helping “the masses” in a Detroit warming center where large numbers of homeless are expected this year in the midst of a down Detroit economy.
While The Detroit News reports that “extreme temperatures” this winter will see an overflow of families to Detroit warming centers, Gov. Jennifer Granholm is celebrating the forced purchase of wind power — to fight global warming — by DTE in order to meet state alternative energy mandates. The expensive mandates will suck more money from Michigan ratepayers. The governor applauded the deal as Lansing has experienced record snowfall and record low temperatures this decade.
It is hard to square the rhetoric of Cancun with the reality of Detroit’s streets. U-M might expose its students to climatologist Pat Michaels who explains that even Cancun’s goal of an 80 percent carbon reduction by 2050 would have minimal effect on global temperatures. Or that diverting $100 million from the economic engines like the U.S. to create green utopias will increase poverty.
Instead, students get green mythology.
“We hope to participate actively while in Cancun, as well as share our experiences with our community upon return,” said one Mexico-bound U-M student. More likely, she’ll be sharing experiences of slip-sliding across an iced-over campus in 10-degree temperatures.
Fears that wind turbines could kill protected golden eagles have halted progress on an important part of the US Government’s push to increase renewable energy on public lands, stalling plans for billions of dollars in wind farm developments.
The US Bureau of Land Management suspended issuing wind permits on public land indefinitely after wildlife officials invoked a decades-old law for protecting eagles.
The restriction has stymied efforts to “fast-track” approval for four of the seven most promising wind energy proposals, including all three in California.
Now, these and other projects appear unlikely to make the year-end deadline to potentially qualify for hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus funds.
If extensions aren’t granted in the lame-duck session of Congress, the future of many of these plans could be in doubt.
“Companies are waiting to know the criteria to get a permit,” said Larry LaPre, a wildlife biologist for BLM’s California desert district.
He said he expected it to be “at least a year or longer” before permitting resumes.
Golden eagles are the latest roadblock to establishing wind farms on federally owned land, already an expensive process plagued by years of bureaucratic delay.
The projects also have been untracked by other wildlife issues, a sluggish economy and objections by defence and aviation authorities that wind turbines interfere with the country’s aged radar system.
The delays are occurring despite a target set by Congress in 2005 that directed the Interior Department to approve about 5 million homes’ worth of renewable energy on public land by 2015. Since then, only two of the more than 250 proposed wind projects have been approved and neither has been built.
The four fast-track projects in jeopardy of losing stimulus funds because of eagle issues would alone generate about 416MW of clean energy, enough to power roughly a half million US homes during peak usage.
There are now 28 US wind farms operating on public lands.
The vast majority of public land regulated by the BLM is in western states, where all onshore wind farms approved or in planning stages will be located.
Three professors at UC Riverside have landed a $350,000 NASA grant to teach nonscience-focused students in high school and college about climate change.
They will use data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to help students navigate through the debate over climate change and understand the science for themselves, said Mary Droser, chairwoman of UCR’s Department of Earth Sciences and the project’s principal investigator.
“They get pummeled by the media — people saying ‘There is no climate change,’ or ‘The end is coming.’ We need an informed public because climate change is coming, it’s a very scary thing, and these are future voters. They need to see through the media hyperbole,” Droser said.
[Snip]
The grant was among $7.7 million in Global Climate Change Education Awards to 17 colleges and nonprofit groups nationwide. Winning proposals used innovative approaches to using the NASA content in teaching, according to a NASA news release. The competitive awards ranged from $300,000 to $700,000.
Tomorrow morning the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will mark the winter solstice by taking an unprecedented step to expand government’s reach into the Internet by attempting to regulate its inner workings. In doing so, the agency will circumvent Congress and disregard a recent court ruling.
(CNSNews.com) – At an all-day White House conference on “environmental justice,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that her department is creating a new task force to battle the effects of climate change on domestic security operations.
Speaking at the first White House Forum on Environmental Justice on Thursday, Napolitano discussed the initial findings of the department’s recently created “Climate Change and Adaptation Task Force.”
California has approved the first system in the nation to give polluting companies such as utilities and refineries financial incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases.
The Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to pass the key piece of California’s 2006 climate law – called AB32 – with the hope that other states will follow the lead of the world’s eighth largest economy. State officials also are discussing plans to link the new system with similar ones under way or being planned in Canada, Europe and Asia.
The rules limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and allow power plants, factories and eventually refiners and others to trade permits to pollute in a program generally known as cap-and-trade.
California is trying to “fill the vacuum created by the failure of Congress to pass any kind of climate or energy legislation for many years now,” said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the state’s air quality board.
The Western Climate Initiative itself offers an opportunity for fraud on a massive scale. Its purpose was to decrease the cost of reducing emissions by letting each region play to its strengths: the Northwest has abundant hydropower while California has strong solar energy potential, so it makes sense to exchange the two.
Or so the theory goes.
In practice, British Columbia, through its government-owned utility BC Power, has been scamming California consumers. BC Power, hit with a fine for its role in California’s Enron-era electricity scandal, has been selling “green” hydropower to California for years.
Then, in an act of electron-laundering, has backfilled its electricity deficit with coal-fired power from Washington state and Alberta. This lets Californians feel good about their electricity while netting Canadians a healthy profit.
A team of scientists who study pollution’s role in global warming are outraged at a GOP Senator who, they say, has maligned their work as wasteful and petty by describing it as a study of “cow burps.”
“This was not funded with earmarks and it was not a study about cow burps,” said John Aber, an environmental scientist and provost of the University of New Hampshire.
“It’s not wasteful,” he said. “It’s important.”
Sen. Tom Coburn, R- Okla., released on Monday his annual “Wastebook” report, a look at 100 projects that received federal funding which, he says, contributed to record deficits in the past year.
Among those projects was a $700,000 grant from the Department of Agriculture to a team of environmental scientists at the University of New Hampshire to study greenhouse gas emissions – the chemicals associated with global warming – in the dairy industry.
Coburn’s “Wastebook” quotes one of the project’s researchers telling a local New Hampshire paper that “cows emit most of their methane through belching, only a small fraction from flatulence.”
Continues………
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This research is a result of the GLOBAL RESEARCH ALLIANCE formed at COP15 that NZ is a partner to (and administrator).
The Great ‘Climate Change’ Taxpayer Rip-Off of 2011
“Beyond that, if Congress was really intent on cutting back on spending, they could begin by defunding or shutting down the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and all the other federal grifters with their snouts rooting around in the climate change trough.”
Despite millions in government grants and subsidies, the Manitowoc company President Barack Obama called a glimpse of the future lost $4.2 million last year and cannot promise shareholders it will be profitable in the foreseeable future.
The State of Wisconsin has also given its share trying to help Orion to succeed. Since 2005, the state has given the company $350,000 in community development zone tax credits, $506,000 in economic development funds, and $420,000 from the Wisconsin Energy Independence Fund. Plus the company got another $260,000 in stimulus funds for a State Energy project.
In addition to direct aid, public policy has also helped the struggling company. Wisconsin law requires that 10 percent of all electricity sold in the state come from renewable sources by 2015. Orion knows that without government intervention like that, there would be little prospect for the green economy.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has ordered utility companies to begin rotating outages to compensate for a power generation shortage.
According to ERCOT, the outages are necessary because there is a shortage of power after some plants were knocked offline due to extreme weather.
“ERCOT is urging all consumers who can reduce their energy consumption to do so at this time. Severe weather has led to the loss of more than 50 generation units more than 7,000 MW, and additional units are continuing to trip offline due to the extreme cold temperatures,” ERCOT said in a news release isued just after noon Wednesday. “Conservation is very critical at this time to reduce the load on the system.”
“When the wind is light, the turbine blades do not turn. And, the coldest nights usually occur with snow cover and light winds. The 9pm weather map for the region is below. The red number at upper right is the current temperature and they are well below zero deep into New Mexico and parts of Kansas and Colorado, so regional power use is high. Springfield, CO was already -15°F. Temperatures are in the single digits and teens over most Texas with very light winds in the areas where the turbines are located.”
“If Texas had made the same dollar investment in new coal and/or nuclear power plants they would probably be snug and warm tonight. Do we we really want to sacrifice our families’ safety and security along with business productivity during extreme cold for the sake of political correctness?”
To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate:
In reply to “The Importance of Science in Addressing Climate Change”
On 28 January 2011, eighteen scientists sent a letter to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate urging them to “take a fresh look at climate change.” Their intent, apparently, was to disparage the views of scientists who disagree with their contention that continued business-as-usual increases in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions produced from the burning of coal, gas, and oil will lead to a host of cataclysmic climate-related problems.
We, the undersigned, totally disagree with them and would like to take this opportunity to briefly state our side of the story.
The eighteen climate alarmists (as we refer to them, not derogatorily, but simply because they view themselves as “sounding the alarm” about so many things climatic) state that the people of the world “need to prepare for massive flooding from the extreme storms of the sort being experienced with increasing frequency,” as well as the “direct health impacts from heat waves” and “climate-sensitive infectious diseases,” among a number of other devastating phenomena. And they say that “no research results have produced any evidence that challenges the overall scientific understanding of what is happening to our planet’s climate,” which is understood to mean their view of what is happening to Earth’s climate.
To these statements, however, we take great exception. It is the eighteen climate alarmists who appear to be unaware of “what is happening to our planet’s climate,” as well as the vast amount of research that has produced that knowledge.
Members of Congress are asking something novel of NASA: to actually study space, not global warming.
[Snip]
The amount of money being spent to study global warming, as a percentage of NASA’s budget, is startling — especially when one considers this is not part of NASA’s original mission. In budget year 2010, NASA spent 7.5% of its funding — over $1B — to study global warming. On top of that — the vast majority of federal stimulus money given to NASA in 2010 was spent on studying global warming.
As a whole, the U.S. federal government has spent $8.7 billion dollars on global warming studies — just in the past year! Many of the sixteen separate agencies doing this work were performing redundant research. In a time of federal spending cuts that are sure to come, much of this redundancy certainly can and must be eliminated, saving taxpayers billions. Certainly NASA should be one of the first to see funding drastically cut, or eliminated entirely, in this area.
The principal arm of global warming research for NASA is the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). That’s “Space” Studies, not climate.
NYT reporting US House cuts REDD+, adaptation, clean tech & IPCC funding
NYT is reporting the US House of Representatives has cut the administration’s FY 2011 request for climate change programs run by the world bank to $0. These cuts include:
$95m for REDD
$400 m for clean tech
$90 for adaptation.
The White House request for supporting the IPCC was also cut from $2.3 million to $0.
Schwarzenegger: It’s Time to Terminate Skepticism on Climate Change
The former governor and action-firm superstar compared the current debate over climate change to the state of bodybuilding when he entered that sport in the late 1960s. A pervasive fear of weightlifting’s effects led celebrities to disavow their own exercise routines, and produced euphemisms when discussing the activity. However, scientific evidence eventually came to support the health benefits of weightlifting, and today talk about abs and pecs is common. Confident in having brought weightlifting to the mainstream, Schwarzenegger told the audience he hopes to do the same for climate science.
House Panel Votes to Strip E.P.A. of Power to Regulate Greenhouse Gases
Published: March 10, 2011
WASHINGTON — A House subcommittee voted on Thursday to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its power to regulate greenhouse gases, chipping away at a central pillar of the Obama administration’s evolving climate and energy strategy.
The sharply partisan vote was preordained by the Republican takeover of the House. Republicans and their industry allies accuse the administration of levying taxes on traditional energy sources through costly environmental regulations, threatening the economic recovery and driving jobs overseas.
Polluter Arguments Rebuffed In ‘Scopes Trial’ On Climate Science
In 2009, the US Chamber of Commerce called for the “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” to question the scientific fact of man-made climate change.
Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia began consideration of a landmark case that consolidates a series of challenges to Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 finding that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health and welfare and its related rule-makings. The cases, brought by energy companies, industry front groups, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), and others, seek to stop the EPA from regulating greenhouse pollution. Their legal argument is that climate science is a hoax.
But the three-judge panel’s questions and comments during the first day of oral arguments showed enormous skepticism of the industry arguments. Acknowledging that by law, the panel must show deference to the EPA’s finding, the chief judge told one of the challenger’s lawyers: “You seem to be asking us to determine that the EPA is incorrect, but that is not the standard, ” and even that “would not be enough to win the case for you.” Other arguments were similarly pooh-poohed by the panel.
[…]
The challengers involved with the cases include:
Industry Front Groups and Trade Associations
–Coalition for Responsible Regulation, Inc.
–Industrial Minerals Association – North America
–National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
–National Mining Association
–SIP/FIP Advocacy Group
–Utility Air Regulatory Group
Coal and Energy Companies
–Alpha Natural Resources, Inc.
–Peabody Energy Company
–Great Northern Project Development, L.P.
–Rosebud Mining Company
Republican-led State Governments
–State of Texas
–State of Wyoming
Perhaps realizing that the law is not on their side, some of these industry groups have simultaneously taken a legislative approach to fighting EPA regulations, pushing for enactment of HR 910, the “Energy Tax Prevention Act.” The bill, sponsored by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), would take away the EPA’s regulatory power over greenhouse gases. The Republican House endorsed the proposal last April, mostly along party lines, but the measure has stalled in the Democratic Senate. The Industrial Minerals Association, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Mining Association, Peabody Energy Company all reported lobbying on the bill in 2011 — part of their combined $9.8 million lobbying efforts on this and other subjects.
Legal challenges by states and industry groups over the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could and should be decided in the challengers’ favor. Whether that will happen in this highly politicized, semi-scientific matter of “dangerous manmade global warming and climate change” remains to be seen. Regardless of what the DC Court of Appeals decides, the case will almost assuredly return to the Supreme Court, where the outcome is equally uncertain.
Washington, D.C.—Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, today announced that a new government report from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reveals that the scientific assessment underpinning the Obama EPA’s endangerment finding for greenhouse gasses was inadequate and in violation of the Agency’s own peer review procedures.
SCIENTIST’S MESSAGE TO SUPREME COURT: EPA’S ENDANGERMENT FINDING INVALID
May 24, 2013
The Supreme Court, in Mass v. EPA, stated that the EPA must treat CO2 and other Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), as “pollutants” and then carryout an analysis to determine whether the increasing concentrations in atmospheric CO2 may reasonably be anticipated to endanger human health and welfare. The Court did not mandate regulation; rather it mandated that EPA go through an Endangerment Finding process.
EPA did so and on December 15, 2009 issued its ruling that CO2 and other GHGs must be regulated. This EPA finding and associated rulings were immediately challenged in the DC Circuit Court. The DC Circuit ruled in favor of EPA, but given the two strong dissents from the December 20, 2012 decision denying rehearing en banc, the matter is likely going to the Supreme Court.
On Thursday, May 23, 2013, 11 scientists submitted an Amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of the Southeastern Legal Foundation ( SLF) et al’s Petition for a writ of certiorari. (see PDF) )
SLF’s petition is the only petition to the Supreme Court that includes a purely science argument developed to show that EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding (EF) should be Vacated. Other Petitioners argue that such a decision is in order but make purely legal or process arguments.
Both the aforementioned Amicus brief and the SLF brief argue that each of the Three Lines of Evidence EPA uses to arrive at its 90-99 % certainty regarding its EF are very highly questionable. More specifically, the science portion of the Amicus Brief concludes with the following statement:
“Amici believe that no scientists have devised an empirically validated theory proving that higher atmospheric CO2 levels will lead to higher GAST. Moreover, if the causal link between higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations and higher GAST is broken by invalidating each of EPA’s three lines of evidence, then EPA’s assertions that higher CO2 concentrations also cause sea-level increases and more frequent and severe storms, floods, and droughts are also disproved. Such causality assertions require a validated theory that higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations cause increases in GAST. Lacking such a validated theory, EPA’s conclusions cannot stand. In science, credible empirical data always trumps proposed theories, even if those theories are claimed to (or actually do) represent the current consensus.”
Related: ‘The worst consequences of the global warming scare’
Guest essay by David Archibald
[…] “During a recent briefing in Washington, D.C., IEA analyst Laszlo Varro was pessimistic about CTL. “Essentially, energy policy needs to replicate a war blockade,” he said. “The only country that has meaningful investments in coal to liquids is China.”
Varro added, “It’s a big carbon dioxide factory.”
With the EPA in the United States hell bent on closing down existing coal-fired power stations using carbon dioxide emissions as the excuse, getting funding for a new coal-burning facility of any sort is going to be a difficult sell. The consequence of that is that the United States is denying itself its largest potential source of liquid transport fuels commercially viable with current oil prices and technology […]
Now let’s go back to that quote from the International Energy Agency analyst: ”energy policy needs to replicate a war blockade.” and “the only country that has meaningful investments in coal to liquids is China.” It seems that one of the reasons that China is investing in coal-to-liquids is that it expects to be subject to a war blockade in a war that it will start itself. On the other side of the Pacific, the United States, which will do the heavy lifting in any such war started by China, is handicapped by denying itself a potential supply of liquid transport fuels and the optimum allocation of its resource endowment. That, dear readers, is the worst consequence of the witchcraft and voodoo that is the current state of official climate science.
Nice site here, Ric Werme’s RGGI Watch documents events and CO2 allowance sales prices.
Overview and History
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative was created several years ago as the first United States Cap and Trade program covering ten states in the northeast. Its goal was to force fossil fuel burning electric power plants to use more efficient and less carbon intensive power production by forcing producers to buy “allowances” for each ton of CO₂ they emit. Each allowance covers a three year time period.
The Environmental Protection Agency Comes-a-Copper
Patrick Michaels
Climate of Fear
May. 12 2011 – 12:20 pm
Have you checked out the price of copper lately? For consumers, the good news is that it fell about 10% in the last month. The bad news is that it is still pretty close to its all-time record high of $4.50 per pound set in February. For comparative purposes, copper hovered slightly below a dollar a pound for years after the turn of the century.
Punditry has it that the rise is because of the enormous increase in consumption by China, and it is a fact that the expansion of its economy and its copper consumption are highly correlated. Without dramatic increases in supply, prices will stay high, subject to China’s booms and busts.
The decline of the dollar also hurts. Put simply, on the world market, it takes more cheap dollars to buy a pound of copper than when it was more valued. That’s probably not going to change very much, either, as long as we continue to mortgage the future.
So why should you care about copper? Because the Environmental Protection Agency is going to make you care.
That hybrid car that you smugly drive contains about 100 pounds of the stuff, largely in the electrical cables and the electric motor. That’s over $400 of raw material price that is a fixed cost at current scarcity. A conventional car has only half as much.
The more electric a vehicle is, the more copper it contains (with the exception of completely impractical fuel cell cars). Part of the reason for the $41,000 sticker price of the Chevy Volt is that it contains about three times as much copper as its gas-only counterpart, the Cruze. This cost is pretty insensitive to the margins of scale or the number of Volts built, as even Government Motors doesn’t catch a break on raw commodity prices.
Enter the EPA. Because of the Supreme Court’s (questionable) interpretation of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments rendered in Massachusetts v. EPA, the agency is now in the business of specifying corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards. That used to be the purview of the Congress via the Department of Transportation, and the rules were pretty straightforward.
No more. The EPA has declared a CAFE standard of 34.1 mpg in 2016, but has “incentivized” the production of copper-gulping hybrids and plug-ins. The new dictate is about as convoluted as something the State Science Institute could set up in Atlas Shrugged. To wit: Even though the power that charges the Volt comes from a grid that is about 70% fossil fuel (i.e. carbon dioxide-emitting) based, the EPA will count the vehicle as having zero emissions when it is on battery power, contributing an inordinately large amount to a manufacturer’s CAFE.
Continues………(The next biggest thing in world copper production may be something known as the Pebble Partnership* near Iliamna, Alaska…………EPA is mulling a preemptive kill shot using an obscure portion of the Clean Water Act)
Ever since the failure of cap-and-trade, the administration has turned to the EPA to carry out its radical environmental agenda. Immediately after the 2010 election Obama was quoted saying “Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way.” The EPA is in the process of completing and finalizing 30 major regulations and 170 major policy rules that would impose hundreds of billions of dollars of compliance costs on the economy, killing jobs and threatening the economic recovery. Because of the disastrous affects that the EPA’s new regulations will have on the already struggling economy, many have taken to calling the administration’s aggressive stance the “EPA train wreck.”
Solargate update: ‘Obama’s Pet Billionaire at Solyndra Make Take White House Down’
A high profile, politically well-connected California solar energy company that had won a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama Administration declared bankruptcy earlier this month and closed its doors sending 1100 workers to the unemployment line. The demise of Solyndra has already sparked an FBI investigation, congressional hearings, and raised numerous questions of political cronyism and corruption connected to the highest levels of the Obama Administration.
As president, Obama had a fiduciary responsibility to be forthright about Solyndra’s grim prospects — in speaking to the American taxpayers whose money he had redistributed, and to the American investors who were about to be solicited for even more funding.
… The president looked us in the eye and averred that, when it came to channeling public funds into private hands, “We can see the positive impacts right here at Solyndra.”
Exclusive Timeline: Bush Administration Advanced Solyndra Loan Guarantee for Two Years, Media Blow the Story
January 2009: In an effort to show it has done something to support renewable energy, the Bush Administration tries to take Solyndra before a DOE credit review committee before President Obama is inaugurated. The committee, consisting of career civil servants with financial expertise, remands the loan back to DOE “without prejudice” because it wasn’t ready for conditional commitment.
March 2009: The same credit committee approves the strengthened loan application. The deal passes on to DOE’s credit review board. Career staff (not political appointees) within the DOE issue a conditional commitment setting out terms for a guarantee.
SunPower: Twice As Bad As Solyndra, Twice As Bad For Obama
How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project—three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project.
As a side note, one thing I’m particularly amused at is the difference in rankings in New Zealand. You see, Gareth Renowden, a truffle farmer who runs the website hot-topic.co.nz who has in the past referred to WUWT as µWatts (microwatts) seems to think he’s reaching a lot of people
The green jobs subsidy story gets more embarrassing by the day. Three years ago President Obama promised that by the end of the decade America would have five million green jobs, but so far some $90 billion in government spending has delivered very few.
A new report by the Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General examined a $500 million grant under the stimulus program to the Employment and Training Administration to “train and prepare individuals for careers in ‘green jobs.'” So far about $162.8 million has been spent. The program was supposed to train 125,000 workers, but only 53,000 have been “trained” so far, only 8,035 have found jobs, and only 1,033 were still in the job after six months.
[…]
The jobs record is even more dismal when you consider that many of the jobs classified as green aren’t even new jobs, much less green
[…]
The silver lining is that the IG found that as of “June 30, 2011, $327.3 million remained unexpended” from the Labor program’s appropriation. The IG urges that all funds “determined not to be needed should be recouped as soon as practicable and to the extent permitted by law.
Architects Propose “Bibs” To Shield NYC From Global Warming’s Floods
Global warming will make New York spectacularly vulnerable to flooding. Some researchers even suggest that in 200 years, Manhattan could look like Venice. Does that mean 8 million people oughta start packing their bags? Of course not. But experts agree the city should do something. Enter Tingwei Xu and Xie Zhang. The U Penn students think New York can protect itself the way a guy cracking lobster protects his tie: by strapping on a bib.
No joke. In their vision, an intelligent, lace-like membrane would be draped over building bases in low-lying parts of the city, guarding precious infrastructure from incoming floods. The membrane would feature a “transforming surface” that’d adapt to different weather conditions, offering more protection when it’s wet out and less when it’s dry. It’d also be planted with trees and other flora, which can form a natural barrier against floodwater.
Mike Jones
02/09/2012 02:12 AM
Umm…are those Star Wars stormtroopers in the background of that last rendering? Who is supposed to take these bibs and fictional characters with laser guns seriously?
Virginia court rejects sceptic’s bid for climate science emails
Campaign by attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, to gain access to Michael Mann’s material, is dismissed by state supreme court
[…]
It is not entirely clear how Cuccinelli will respond. The attorney general is planning to run for governor in 2013, and he showed no sign of regret in his response to the decision on Friday.
“From the beginning, we have said that we were simply trying to review documents that are unquestionably state property to determine whether or not fraud had been committed,” his office said in a statement. “Today, the court effectively held that state agencies do not have to provide state-owned property to state investigators looking into potential fraud involving government funds.”
First, I’m trying to figure out exactly how this figure [2.1] was created. I went to the CMIP5 web page. It seems that Christy has somehow spliced the historical simulations (1850 to at least 2005) with the projections (in this case the RCP4.5 scenario). Given this apparent splicing, I am not sure why all these curves look so smooth. Until I get a clarification from Christy, I advise not reading too much into the curves beyond say 2005-2010. Also I am not sure if these simulations include the simulations with coupled carbon cycle.
I have seen results from a few of the individual climate model simulations from CMIP5, but not the synthesis of all the models. Assuming that Christy’s figure (at least up to 2005) has been put together correctly, we see the models are overall biased high, with a greater spread than we saw in the CMIP3/AR4 (this was discussed on a recent thread). Note, all the CMIP3/AR4 models produced results that pretty much matched the observations (see Fig 9.5). Given that the CMIP5 simulations use better models and forcing data, how do we explain the larger bias and spread in CMIP5?
In my uncertainty monster paper, I attributed this agreement in CMIP3 to circular reasoning that included selecting forcing data by each modeling group to produce good agreement with the observed time series. Hegerl et al. heartily objected to our analysis, although the emails seem to support my argument.
Based on what I have heard, their explanation for the larger spread and high biases seems to be related to how the aerosol indirect effect is included (and whether it is included at all).
I look forward to pondering the entire historical simulations back to to 1850. The CMIP5 has a much better experimental design than CMIP3, and there is less flexibility in selecting the forcings to make your simulations agree with the observations. Here is what I think is going on with the high bias since about 1985 shown in Christy’s figure. The models are too sensitive to CO2 forcing, because of a hyperactive water feedback (this hyperactive water vapor feedback arises from approximations used from weather models that cause error accumulation in longer climate simulations). The aerosol indirect effect (negative) can counter this hyperactive postive water vapor feedback by being too strong. I recall a paper by Rostayn (about 10 years old, can’t find it easily) that said including aerosol indirect effect without including fully interactive aerosol (with sinks) would produce an aerosol indirect effect that is too large. So in principle, two wrongs (hyperactive positive water vapor feedback and negative aerosol indirect effect) can make a right (i.e. agree with observations).
JC conclusion
The heavy reliance by IPCC on climate model simulations seems less justified with the CMIP5 simulations than it did with the CMIP3 simulations (where I was one of the people that was fooled by the strong agreement between the 20th century simulations and the observations of global temperature anomalies in AR4).
The psychological effect on decision makers of this disagreement and larger spread among the models will be interesting. I hope this improved characterization of the model uncertainty will lead to greater support for observationally based studies to determine attribution and sensitivity, and more focus on assembling and cleaning historical records and developing new paleo proxies.
And with regards to extreme events, we need to see more of the type of regional analyses that Christy has done. Christy’s analysis reinforces that many types of weather extremes were more extreme in the 1930′s and 1950′s.
I think we can consider Judith Curry’s preliminary critique to be a strong endorsement of John Christy’s testimony.
Wind and solar get the most taxpayer help for the least production
The folks at the Institute for Energy Research used the Energy Department data to calculate a subsidy per unit of electricity produced. Per megawatt hour, natural gas, oil and coal received 64 cents, hydropower 82 cents, nuclear $3.14, wind $56.29 and solar a whopping $775.64.
Unbelievable – and these are just the subsidies; how do the prices compare?
Wind is 100 times and solar 1000 times more expensive than conventional energy, and that’s only for the government (read “the taxpayer”) before you even begin to build a generator.
Good question. I don’t know how the market for wholesale electricity works exactly in the USA but I think it’s much the same as NZ.
I’ve been reading the Technical Guide for Energy Outlook modeling in NZ and it works like this:-
GEM v2.0 has a module which calculates the Long Run Marginal Cost (LRMC) of each new plant. GEM also calculates the MWh dispatched by each plant in each quarter. The dispatch data is broken down into 9 load blocks in each quarter.
The LRMC and dispatch data are then fed into a price optimisation model, or linear program (LP). The LP finds the market prices required in each load block so that new plant, on average, obtain market prices which are greater than or equal to the LRMC. There are additional model ‘constraints’. For example, existing thermal generators must also earn (at least) their Short Run Marginal Cost (SRMC). The SRMC is the $/MWh required to meet all variable costs which, for thermal generators, is predominantly the fuel cost. The following section describes all the equations in more detail.
Note that this is a simple model reflecting a very complex spot market where offers are largely based on SRMC as opposed to LRMC. However, investors are unlikely to build new generation unless they anticipate prices at or above LRMC when their plant is running in the future. If prices do not meet LRMC then future investment will be delayed, resulting in a supply short‐fall if demand keeps rising. This will eventually drive up wholesale prices (as more expensive thermal generation would be need to be dispatched) and as prices rise towards LRMC then these new plant will be built.
So basically (as I see it), each generator competes against each other with bid offers on the spot market for base load dispatch and peak load dispatch. So whether a generator is making or losing depends on the spot price (if their bid is accepted) and their long-run (and short-run for thermal) marginal cost (LRMC).
Therefore the wholesale spot price is the bid that the demand-side buyer accepts no matter what type of supply-side source just that in this USA situation, some of the supply-side players have only been able to enter and continue in the market with the benefit of subsidies.
“That USA subsidy environment doesn’t exist in NZ”
Carbon pricing in NZ and AU distorts the wholesale market in much the same way as US subsidies in that the ranking over time for when new generation of type is commissioned, is turned on its head.
I’ve done a very rough analysis of that ranking change from 0$/t to 100$/t carbon charge using the graphs in the Electricity Authority report ‘Wind Integration – the long view (NZ)’ here:-
Wind jumps from about #6 and 7 to about #2 in that scenario but carbon pricing has been heading south from the nominal NZ$25 mark so the ranking moves in the opposite direction towards the 0$/t scenario which in combination with a decline in demand for electricity means new wind projects get shelved as happened to Contact Energy’s Hauauru ma raki (HMR) “up to” 504 MW wind farm in the Waikato:-
As the rest of the world contends with unusually warm temperatures and scorching drought, Alaska has been bucking the trend since 2000 by reporting some of the coldest winters on record.
Like most of the planet, the state has been heating up steadily over the past century and is frequently cited as one of the fastest-warming areas on the planet, according to the Alaska Dispatch, an online newspaper. The Alaska Climate Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks notes the state was warming at roughly twice the pace as the rest of the planet, particularly from the 1970s into the 1990s, reports the Dispatch.
But since 2000, nearly all the National Weather Service monitoring stations sprinkled across the vast state have reported colder-than-average temperatures. The station at King Salmon on the Alaska Peninsula, for example, experienced an average 4.5 degree Fahrenheit (2.9 degrees Celsius) drop in temperature over the course of the first decade of this century.
“The Next Generation standards require teaching the accepted science that says carbon dioxide emissions from burning oil, coal, and gas is causing the earth’s climate to warm”
How will they explain the standstill, is that an extracurricular activity?
SO when Pachauri said in his interview with The Australian that there had been no warming for 17 years, was he confused, misrepresented, or was this actually what he meant?
This leads onto the education thing. If we have had no more warming for another year, will “global warming” be taught as part of the history syllabus? After all, there will be no one at school in a year who has experienced “global warming” in their lifetimes.
Simon is pointing (via Tamino) to the very high 2012 US temperature left out of Coleman’s graph at WUWT. I agree, it was obvious USA had a warm one so there’s no excuse for a one-year-too-short series (like Mike’s AGU Trick – seven years too short). The decadal trend wont have changed much though.
I’m inclined to think, like you Andy, that selling (let alone teaching) the “accepted science” will be problematic with class of 2014+ children who have not experienced the rapid rise of the 80s and 90s and who will inevitably do a bit of fact checking in their own time. It will be even harder if the present trend continues, or – heaven forbid – cools.
Is Tamino trying to say that there actually has been a warming trend over the last 15yrs? Ah I see, you can only examine the trend over the last 15 yrs if you include the previous century before that – now I see what he means by cherry picking.
I noticed that rather curious graph too. According to Tamino, there has been around 1 deg F of warming since 2000. He appears to be applying some kind of running mean or other trick
>”…some kind of running mean..” – I think it’s a polynomial, that has a 1940 peak that the CO2 curve doesn’t have. It does however look very much like the 60 year cycle, the current phase of which should last until 2034 i.e. look for that polynomial to change phase very soon with additional data.
That’s not the significant cycle though, the greater is described here:-
Report at the WSEAS|CIEO International Conference Faro, Algarve, Portugal, 3-5 November 2010
Climate Change in the XXIst Century: Mechanisms and Predictions
2.3 Climate change in this century
Based on the evolution of the duration of the Schwabe cycle and on the satellite measurements of the total solar irradiance during the last 30 years, astronomers predicted the amplitudes of the next three Schwabe cycles, of about 70, 50 and 35 sunspots at the maximum, as compared to 110 of the last complete cycle. This means that a new Little Ice Age will be developing during the XXIst century, with the lowest solar activity achieved around 2040 and the temperatures hitting the bottom at around 2055, at some 1.0 K below the present value for the global average temperatures. This is comparable to what occurred during the Maunder minimum, see Fig. 4 [16,17], being due to the existence of a bicentennial solar activity component, which produces changes in TSI that are significantly larger than those occurring during the Schwabe cycle, accompanied by increased intensity in GCR and cloud cover. This bicentennial component has produced notable climate differences, such as between the present solar maximum and the Maunder and Dalton minimums (Fig. 5), causing Little Ice Ages once in about every 200 years, as the historical record for the last 7500 years shows, with 18 of such cooling events documented [18].
The kids of course, will know nothing of the solar influence evident in climate cycles because it’s not “accepted science”.
Unless solar cycles turn up in geology or other non climate science module in their geography class that Andy reports up-thread. Fine to teach the CO2-centric theory but how does it apply to Little Ice Ages (18 in the last 7500 yrs) when climate was radically different to the “anthropocene” and likely to be repeated in the near future i.e. in those kids lifetime for sure?
It would be a rolling mean. Once again, you should never apply polynomial regressions to time series. Tamino has been blogging recently about autocorrelation in the noise of temperature data and how to correct for it, smoothing is a simple way of doing that.
It’s not a rolling mean, aka moving average, because it extends over the entire series. Look at the first and last datapoints in relation to the curve, there’s a corresponding curve point. If it were a 7 year moving average say, there would be 6 yrs missing at the start of the curve.
>”Once again, you should never apply polynomial regressions to time series”
What a load of rubbish. Tamino has applied a polynomial of some order and it represents the cyclical nature of the data with a very high correlation value I’m sure. It’s just a matter then, of looking for the long-term cycles that fit the curve in order to know if projection can be made and how long for. In this case it would go against the prevailing cycles to do so at this juncture because there’s no driver acting to extend it on that trajectory. Scafetta will find that out eventually too.
The IPCC are being gazumped by natural cycles right now but don’t know it obviously because they can only point to “natural variation” while they’re scrabbling around to explain the unpredicted (by them) standstill.
This all will make an excellent case study for educational institutions in the future.
It will be an ARIMA model which is a moving average. Also note that the temperature series is solely the continental US (48 States) and that last year was exceptionally hot in the US.
If natural cycles exist they would be teased out by a Principal Component Analysis. Instead, PC1 is a ‘hockey stick’, even in McIntyre’s dataset 🙂
(B) is the autoregressive operator, represented as a polynomial in the
back shift operator: (B) = 1 1B : : : pBp
(B) is the moving-average operator, represented as a polynomial in the
back shift operator: (B) = 1 1B : : : qBq
>”If natural cycles exist they would be teased out by a Principal Component Analysis”
“teased out”? Or identified by smoothing? There are wads of literature on the 60 year cycle (as per PDO BTW) and the multitude of natural cycles evident in times series of climate (just read Scafetta for example) but they don’t find their way into IPCC assessments natch.
If you, Tamino, or anyone, are going to use an ARIMA model to forecast climate, the forecast will be meaningless unless the longer-term cycles (and corresponding drivers) are taken into account. Anyone using ARIMA or EMD or PCI or polynomial or moving average or linear regression for forecasting without cognizance of the limitations of the tool or what the components they are seeing in the data actually represent in the real world are fooling themselves.
Tamino obviously does not understand the earth’s solar driven ocean heat sink based enthalpy, or ENSO processes, or thermal inertia and lag, or solar varation. He thinks they can be “taken out” of the data but by doing so he overlooks key indicators and is left with a totally unrealistic trajectory. Mind you he is not alone on that. There are papers and articles by scientists from the non-CO2 side making the same mistakes.
It’s the (very) approx 200 year cycle that’s biting the IPCC on the backside right now (and Tamino over the next few years – he’s already wrong since 2010 in the GAT metric).
‘The 200-year sunspot cycle is also a weather cycle’
I get a similar profile but not smoothed as much as Tamino’s US atm temp ARIMA (?) smoothing in IMF6 (last intermediate mode) from an EMD analysis of HadSST2 but the residual signal tells a totally different story (rapid warming is over contrary to ARIMA – if that’s what Tamino used).
I wouldn’t project the centennial scale residual from a 132 yr series for prediction though but it is a key leading indicator that evolves (will get dropped to IMF7 and new residual eventually) as new data comes in. IMF6 is mukti-decadal oscillations and IMF5 is inter-decadal oscillations.
Doesn’t identify the 60 yr cycle with any clarity though, ARIMA would do a good job of that I suspect if Tamino projected a longer series Scafetta style. But both guys miss what the EMD residual reveals, what the 200 yr cycle implies, and what SC24 is now telling everyone that wont listen to what the likes of De Jager, Duhau, Abdussamatov, Timo Niroma up-thread, and a bunch of others are saying.
Maybe it is but the resulting curve looks exactly like a 4th order polynomial with trajectory heading skywards in the 21st century (using SST instead of USAT). A 5th order poly turns down in the 21st century OTOH.
Leads me to think that the orders of the polynomial representations in ARIMA (if that’s what it is) determines the shape of the model profile in the same way that manual selection of polynomial order does for a trend regression.
“I don’t know about you, but I think a balanced view of global warming would involve teaching the evidence against global warming as well as the evidence for it. Human activities are “major factors”? Surely they may be major factors. Surely the failure of temperatures to rise in recent years suggests that they may equally be minor factors. Should the attribution statement not be qualified with the fact that it depends on computer models that may be useful as toys for scientists but, having no proven ability to predict future climate, are far being ready to inform policymakers?
Will the children be told this? Or are they just pawns of a left-wing educational establishment who must hear the recitation of the global warming dogma?”
New York would need about $US382 billion ($367 billion) and wind turbines covering an area equivalent to 13 per cent of the state’s land mass if it followed a Cornell University plan to derive all of its power from renewables.
Robert Howarth, a Cornell ecology professor, suggested last month the state could get half its power from wind and enough from solar, tidal and other forms of clean energy to replace fossil fuels by 2030. The plan for 254 gigawatts of generation capacity would cost about $US1.5 million a megawatt, or $US382 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The findings cast doubt on the ability of the state to eliminate oil, natural gas and coal from its energy supply. The Cornell proposal would require onshore wind turbines covering an area 3.3 times the size of New York City’s five boroughs.
“It’s too ambitious by 2030 to replace all the state’s power with renewables, although big progress could be made,” Angus McCrone, a senior analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London, said today. The projections, he said, look “unrealistic” for individual technologies.
U.S. Breadbasket At Risk From Global Cooling NOAA Indicates – Crop Failures, World Hunger A Result?
While left-leaning U.S. politicians, bureaucrats and the partisan mainstream press continue to push the silly catastrophic AGW hysteria from human CO2 emissions, a significant cooling trend (per NOAA) across a critically important global breadbasket continues – if the latest 15-year global cooling trend persists, crop yields will suffer immensely
[see charts]
As has been well documented, global warming has gone AWOL and in some regions of the world, global cooling trends have materialized, which scientists across the world are starting to express concern with.
In the key crop regions of the U.S., there has been an extended cooling trend that persists despite the immense human CO2 emissions released over the last two decades. The above four NOAA charts depict those cooling trends across the a wide swath of American agricultural production. These charts represent the main American corn, soybean, spring and winter wheat growing areas.
What the huge U.S. breadbasket needs at this point is a few years of some good old fashioned global warming that will reverse the potential devastation a mass cooling would deliver to crop yields.
Unfortunately, though, it appears nature is not delivering what the American farmers and ranchers need this spring.
President Obama is set to announce his plan this week to address the growing threat of climate change.
We’ll know more specifics on Tuesday, but it’s expected he’ll offer a bold, national approach to reducing carbon pollution — and lay out a vision to lead global efforts to fight climate change.
The powerful, well-financed forces who still deny the science behind climate change aren’t going to like this — and they’ll be fighting this progress every step of the way. In fact, before he’s even seen the plan, House Speaker John Boehner is calling it “absolutely crazy.”
That’s why President Obama is calling on all of us — anyone who believes that climate change is a threat — to join him in taking action right now.
Thanks for helping hold climate deniers accountable — join the President’s call and add your name today:
I see Oblahblah’s right up with the latest, but irrelevant, data. And the stock response to critics too (or, how to insult, anger and alienate a large part of the populace). People voted for that?
Heh, turns out the president of the Flat Earth Society, Daniel Shenton, personally thinks the evidence suggests fossil fuel usage is contributing to global warming (via JN):
‘Actually, even the Flat Earth Society believes in climate change’
[Shenton] “I accept that climate change is a process which has been ongoing since beginning of detectable history, but there seems to be a definite correlation between the recent increase in world-wide temperatures and man’s entry into the industrial age,” he said. “If it’s a coincidence, it’s quite a remarkable one. We may have experienced a temperature increase even without our use of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution, but I doubt it would be as dramatic as what we’re seeing now.”
As for Obama’s dig at his group, which indeed thinks the world is flat, Shenton said he’s not surprised and doesn’t take it personally.
‘Obama resorts to stagecraft as he lays out his aggressive climate change plan’
by Thomas Richard,
On June 25, President Obama, resorting to his usual props and theatrics, spoke outside on a typical June muggy day in Washington D.C., and spelled out his aggressive plan to address man-made global warming. Often during his speech, he pulled out his bright white handkerchief and wiped his forehead, a bit of stagecraft that the cameras gobbled up.
For those unfamiliar with Georgetown University, it also has an enormous indoor, air-conditioned auditorium (see slideshow) where other prominent figures have given addresses to large crowds. So why didn’t Obama choose the more secure, cooler auditorium rather than the humidity-soaked outdoor location? Stagecraft.
Even the Christian Science Monitor noted the obvious histrionics of a president………
If only President Obama simply had cried wolf. Instead, the president announced that, on behalf of “all of humankind,” he is in effect directing the EPA to take over the American economy. New power plants will be subject to emissions controls, and existing plants will have to be retrofitted to comply with new standards. New restrictions on heavy trucks will affect the movement of freight and goods across the country. New subsidies will be handed down for politically connected energy firms, and federal lands will be set aside for their use. New federal impositions will affect the construction of factories, commercial buildings, and private homes. The president says that this is all enabled by the “overwhelming judgment of science.”
It certainly has not been enabled by something so mundane as the law. We rather suspect that the overwhelming judgment of Congress would be against the president’s program of regimenting the entire American economy under the management of a newly empowered EPA. But the president has made it clear that he intends to act largely through administrative fiat, subverting the democratic process and the people’s elected representatives. Unhappily, the Supreme Court has abetted this ambition by misconstruing the Clean Air Act as a warrant of action on global warming.
If ever there was an indictment on climate alarmism, “the Supreme Court has abetted this ambition by misconstruing the Clean Air Act as a warrant of action on global warming” is it.
I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this from the USA.
‘Blowing Smoke: Obama Climate Speech Riddled With Lies’
A dangerous, arrogant, fact-free tirade.
By Dr Tim Ball and Tom Harris
[…]
Obama used the erroneous phrase “carbon pollution” a total of twenty times in his Georgetown speech.
He is, of course, really speaking of CO2, an odorless, invisble gas essential to plant life and in no way a pollutant. Yet the Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) still designates CO2 a “harmful substance” so as to allow greater bureaucratic control of industry under the Clean Air Act. In Tuesday’s address, the president promised to expand the EPA’s CO2 regulations to cover existing power stations, an action sure to cost billions of dollars and millions of jobs for no environmental benefit. EPA’s claim is based on three lines of evidence that a recent amicus brief [hotlinked] filed with the U.S. Supreme Court shows are invalid. Regardless, calling CO2 “carbon” helps Obama politically since it encourages people to think of CO2 as associated with soot, something that is pure carbon and is clearly dirty and undesirable.
Of course, we can and should reduce the amount of soot going in to the atmosphere, and apart from China, significant advances have occurred. Scrubber technology for coal-fired power plants has been available for a long time. If Obama really wants to help people’s health and the environment, he should encourage all possible use of scrubbers.
The “carbon pollution” mistake is often used by activists to focus negative attention specifically on coal-fired electricity generation, since “carbon” comes from the Latin carbo, meaning coal. Over 40 percent of U.S. energy comes from coal, and so killing this energy source is fundamental to the president’s apparent goals of expanding government control and redistributing wealth. Obama wants to end coal use entirely in the U.S., no matter how clean it can be made. Obama even told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008: “What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as an ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.”
Summary Of The Argument …………………… 4
Reasons For Granting The Petitions ………………… 6
I. The Conclusion That EPA Drew From Its Three Lines Of Evidence Is Demonstrably Invalid …………….. 7
A. First Line Of Evidence: EPA’s GHG Fingerprint (Or Hot Spot) Theory……. 9
B. Second Line Of Evidence: The Purported Unusual Rise In GAST ………. 13
C. Third Line Of Evidence: Climate Models …………… 16
II. Serious Deficiencies In EPA’s Process Contributed To Its Scientific Errors …………. 21
Some of the signatories to the October 2009 letter and other independent scientists, in a group that also included some of the amici before this Court, lodged an amicus brief with the court of appeals making similar points about the data and EPA’s scientific conclusions. Brief of Amici Curiae Scientists in Support of Petitioners Supporting Reversal, Coalition for Responsible Regulation, Inc. v. Environmental Protection Agency, No 09-1322 (CADC June 8, 2011), ECF No. 1312291. The D.C. Circuit declined to grant leave for that brief to be filed.
In the midst of an unsettled and vigorous international debate regarding the existence of purported global warming and the role—if any—of human-emitted greenhouse gases (GHGs) in contributing to that alleged warming, EPA concluded with near absolute certainty that temperatures in the second half of the twentieth century were “unusually” high because of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. 74 Fed. Reg. 66518 (2009). That sweeping conclusion was a critical component of the EPA’s Endangerment Finding, and so was an impetus for the most significant and far-reaching regulatory program ever devised by a federal agency.
Amici urge the Court to grant petitioners’ request for certiorari because the three “lines of evidence” from the administrative record that EPA relied on do not support the conclusion that manmade greenhouse gas emissions have caused climate warming in the latter half of the twentiethcentury. Indeed, each line of evidence is demonstrably invalid.
EPA’s first line of evidence, its purported basic physical understanding of the effect of GHGs and other factors on climate, is invalid because it relies on the existence of an atmospheric “hot spot” or “fingerprint” that simply does not exist in the real world’s temperature data.
Its second line of evidence, the assertion that temperatures around the globe rose to unusual and dangerously high levels over the last fifty years, is also demonstrably false using the best temperature data available.
Likewise, EPA’s third line of evidence, involving computerized climate models, is also invalid. It can be shown that those models, premised on faulty assumptions, just do not produce forecasts that match up with the real world.
No specialized scientific education or previous experience with climate science is needed to see that those facts are true. Each of EPA’s lines of evidence requires that the most relevant and credible temperature data available show upward-sloping trends in temperature. That is true for the Hot Spot or GHG Fingerprint theory, the assertion that worldwide temperatures have been anomalous, and for actual data to conform to EPA’s model forecasts of rising global average surface temperature (GAST). In science, theories must be validated against the most credible empirical data. Each of EPA’s three lines of evidence will be shown to be invalid via such easy to understand hypothesis testing.
EPA reached its invalid conclusions through a highly deficient process. EPA refused to examine “relevant data,” FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502, 513 (2009) (quoting Motor Vehicles Mfrs. Assn. of U.S., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43 (1983)), and made other procedural errors. EPA’s Endangerment Finding is not “rational,” but arbitrary and capricious. Fox, 556 U.S., at 516. Amici therefore respectfully request that this Court grant petitioners’ request for certiorari in this case.
‘Submission of Legal Brief To the US Supreme Court.’
by admin on May 27, 2013
On May 23, 2013 eleven of us filed a brief with the US Supreme Court supporting the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) et al’s Petition for a writ of certiorari. The brief is asking the Supreme Court to consider our scientific argument that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) CO2 Endangerment Finding be dropped because of scientific and legal errors. The following is the press release explaining our Brief, which is attached.
“SLF’s petition is the only petition to the Supreme Court that includes a purely science argument developed to show that EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding (EF) should be Vacated. Other Petitioners argue that such a decision is in order but make purely legal or process arguments.”
About SLF: Founded in 1976, Southeastern Legal Foundation is celebrating its 37th year as an national constitutional public interest law firm and policy center that advocates limited government, individual economic freedom, and the free enterprise system in the courts of law and public opinion. Our mission is to engage in litigation and public policy advocacy in support of these principles.
We look for cases and issues in which our involvement makes a difference, not just to the parties involved, but also on the policies and issues in dispute. We believe that the U.S. Constitution is a complete document, creating limits on government. When government — federal, state and local — goes beyond the constitutional limits, we are there to enforce constitutional limitations. We are not a single-issue organization; rather, we are a conservative public interest law firm and policy center dedicated to creating binding legal precedent and positive public policy change for all Americans.
Mission and Goals
Southeastern Legal Foundation is a public interest law firm which advocates limited government, individual economic freedom, and the free enterprise system. We look for cases in which our involvement can make a difference, not just to the parties involved, but also on the policies or issues that are in dispute.
Case Centers
• Global Warming?
• Property Rights
• Free Speech
• Census / Redistricting
• Campaign Finance
• Reverse Discrimination
• Ten Commandments
• Honor Roll of Freedom
• Legislative Education
• Unemployment Ins.
• Budget & Taxes
Find out the latest on the legal and scientific battle underway to save common sense and the American economy! http://www.epalawsuit.org
* Home
* Why a Lawsuit?
* How the EPA Got it Wrong
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* The Science
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* EPA Lawsuit Updates http://epalawsuit.com/epa-lawsuit-updates/
Home: Lawsuits and Science
SLF began work on global warming issues in 2006 with investigations into mass tort/class action lawsuits filed after Hurricane Katrina alleging public nuisance claims against American industry for “causing” alleged global warming that caused the destructive hurricane. During the investigation, SLF uncovered scientific evidence by leading credible scientists that “global warming”/climate change is not the “consensus” established by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its reports. Further investigation – as well as review of recent disclosures by a whistleblower at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Copenhagen conference failures, and “Climategate” disclosures of alleged data fraud – reveal that the matter of human-caused (anthropogenic) climate change is anything but “settled science.”
Nonetheless, despite more than 300,000 thousand lucid, relevant formal public comments submitted to the EPA during the 2009 public comment period on its proposed Endangerment Finding related to carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions, including a comprehensive report from SLF (see inside this website [top of page options] at “Why a Lawsuit?” and “How the EPA Got It Wrong”), EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson issued an Endangerment Finding on December 7, 2009.
The Endangerment Finding indicates that draconian, costly regulations will be promulgated by the EPA in 2010 and beyond (according to reports, more than 600 pages of new mandates that will impose costly and invasive burdens on American industry and energy and, therefore, consumers and taxpayers).
Taking the Matter to Court
SLF, representing a group of well-informed and concerned Americans, including leaders in Congress who have been intimately involved in climate change issues for more than a decade, has brought the first of likely several court and administrative legal actions. The goal is to compel the federal government to follow the laws as enacted by Congress and to pursue legitimate public policy based on legitimate scientific data. The American people deserve no less, and the U.S. Constitution mandates it.
The proposed measures in the EPA’s arsenal will cripple the American economy at a cost of at least $1 trillion over the next decade – and will provide no significant environmental benefit to the climate and environment over the next 30 years.
SLF is providing background legal and scientific information on this website during the pendency of the various legal actions in order to ensure that the American people have access to the proceedings and to solid representative materials of the scientific inquiry into climate change.
[SLF represents 12 members of Congress, 15 companies and associations, and has been joined in the appeal (Petition for Writ of Certiorari) by Competitive Enterprise Institute, FreedomWorks, and the Science and Environmental Policy Project]
>”…review of recent disclosures by a whistleblower at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)”
‘EPA Whistleblower Criticizes Global Warming Science and Policy in New Peer-Reviewed Study’
Study Shows Claims of Catastrophic Warming Are Overwhelmingly Contradicted By Real-World Data’
By Christine Hall, April 01, 2011
Washington, D.C., April 1, 2011 – The scientific hypotheses underlying global warming alarmism are overwhelmingly contradicted by real-world data, and for that reason economic studies on the alleged benefits of controlling greenhouse gas emissions are baseless. That’s the finding of a new peer-reviewed report by a former EPA whistleblower.
Dr. Alan Carlin, now retired, was a career environmental economist at EPA when CEI broke the story of his negative report on the agency’s proposal to regulate greenhouse gases in June, 2009. Dr. Carlin’s supervisor had ordered him to keep quiet about the report and to stop working on global warming issues. EPA’s attempt to silence Dr. Carlin became a highly-publicized embarrassment to the agency, given Administrator Lisa Jackson’s supposed commitment to transparency.
Dr. Carlin’s new study, A Multidisciplinary, Science-Based Approach to the Economics of Climate Change [link at bottom of page], is published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. It finds that fossil fuel use has little impact on atmospheric CO2 levels. Moreover, the claim that atmospheric CO2 has a strong positive feedback effect on temperature is contradicted on several grounds, ranging from low atmospheric sensitivity to volcanic eruptions, to the lack of ocean heating and the absence of a predicted tropical “hot spot.”
However, most economic analyses of greenhouse gas emission controls, such as those being imposed by EPA, have been conducted with no consideration of the questionable nature of the underlying science. For that reason, according to Dr. Carlin, the actual “economic benefits of reducing CO2 emissions may be about two orders of magnitude less” than what is claimed in those reports.
>”…according to Dr. Carlin, the actual “economic benefits of reducing CO2 emissions may be about two orders of magnitude less” than what is claimed in those reports”
See ‘The Social Cost of Carbon’ in the Economics thread:
Presumably these measures will depress the price of coal even further which will be good news for “green” countries like Germany who are building 24 new coal fired power plants.
Yes perhaps, but it does not necessarily follow. There will be a long time lag for that to occur that will take events beyond the Obama presidency but I think US coal producer stock prices have already taken a hit. It would be insane though if all this went ahead.
It has been observed that US would just increase exports of coal to Asia (China) and Europe (Germany) so it will be similar the the AU situation. Not good news for Solid Energy but it might mean cheaper coal would prolong Huntly or even make a new coal burner economic. Even now it’s not out of the question.
Re Obama circumventing Congress law to regulate CO2 emissions, Carlin’s EPA whistleblowing, and the EPA Endangerment Finding vs Global Warming Litigation Project – some duplicity (and nativity) in The Guardian:
‘James Clapper, EU play-acting, and political priorities’
Fixations on denouncing Edward Snowden distract, by design, from the serious transgressions of those who are far more powerful
Glenn Greenwald
“….the oft-repeated claim from President Barack Obama that the NSA is not listening in on Americans’ calls without warrants……..indisputably false.”
“What we see here, yet again, is this authoritarian strain in US political life that the most powerful political officials cannot commit crimes or engage in serious wrongdoing. The only political crimes come from exposing and aggressively challenging those officials.”
“How is it anything other than pure whistleblowing to disclose secret documents proving that top government officials have been systematically deceiving the public about vital matters and/or skirting if not violating legal and Constitutional limits?”
Republican report: Critical Thinking on Climate Change
Senate GOP criticizes past global warming claims ahead of hearing
Senate Republicans have released a report debunking catastrophic predictions made about global warming in advance of the Environment and Public Works Committee hearing held today.
“Over nearly four decades, numerous predictions have had adequate time to come to fruition, providing an opportunity to analyze and compare them to today’s statistics,” reads the report from Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
The report examines the 15-year break from global warming, sea level rises, extreme weather, and the unilateral regulations proposed by the Obama administration.
US House Republicans proposed cutting the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by a third and denying funds for a key part of President Barack Obama’s plan to combat global warming.
The House Appropriations committee’s panel that oversees the EPA will consider cutting $US2.8 billion ($3.03 billion) from the agency’s 2014 budget, and prohibit the administration from spending on greenhouse-gas rules for power plants, the centerpiece of Obama’s climate plan. The budget for the year starting October 1, which will get a vote tomorrow in the subcommittee, also would bar the EPA from imposing new curbs on sulfur in gasoline and on the use of water by power plants.
“By holding back overly zealous and unnecessary environmental regulations, this bill can have a positive effect on our economy and will help encourage job growth,” Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican, said today in a statement.
House Republicans are seeking to limit the president’s efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, which scientists say are causing global warming. While the measures with the restrictions have little chance of being adopted in the Democratic-led Senate, they underscore efforts administration critics are considering to head off or slow the EPA’s regulation.
‘Lawmakers vote to thwart EPA move on ‘social cost of carbon’ ‘
By Ben Geman and Pete Kasperowicz
The House voted Thursday to block the Environmental Protection Agency from weighing the benefits of curbing carbon emissions when crafting major energy-related regulations.
Lawmakers voted 234-178 for Rep. Tim Murphy’s (R-Pa.) amendment to prevent EPA from factoring the “social cost of carbon” into rules unless a federal law is enacted that allows its consideration.
Fifteen Democrats voted with almost all Republicans for the amendment, while three Republicans opposed it.
The amendment was tacked onto GOP legislation that allows the Energy Department to veto EPA rules with $1 billion or more in costs if the department determines they would harm the economy.
The amendment vote was the latest scuffle over the recent White House increase in the social cost of carbon, a metric of estimated damages caused by heat-trapping emissions.
[…]
But Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, called the amendment an assault on efforts to address dangerous climate change.
“The Murphy amendment denies that carbon pollution is harmful,” Waxman said ahead of the vote. “According to this amendment the cost of carbon pollution is zero.”
“That is science denial at its worst,” Waxman said.
Murphy’s amendment is part of wider GOP criticism of the increased social cost of carbon estimate. Click here, here and here for more coverage.
The underlying bill is slated to clear the House Thursday afternoon but faces dim prospects in the Democrat-led Senate.
‘The Problem with the 10th Circuit’s Ruling in State of Oklahoma et al. v. EPA’
by William Yeatman on July 26, 2013
[…]
To be precise, EPA disapproved Oklahoma’s estimate of what BART controls would cost. Oklahoma calculated that scrubbers, a retrofit to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions, would cost $1.8 billion to install at six power plants. Based in part on this estimate, state officials deemed that scrubbers were too expensive to serve as Regional Haze BART.
EPA contested this conclusion by hiring an “independent” consultant. According to this “independent” consultant, Oklahoma’s accounting was improper, and the actual cost of installing the six scrubbers was half what the Sooner State claimed it was—about $900 million.
[…]
I followed the case closely, and I thought it would be a slam dunk for Oklahoma. For starters, the State won a stay preventing EPA’s implementation of its Regional Haze rule while the court deliberated the case. This is always a good sign for the petitioners. More importantly, the previous case law made it clear that States get to choose BART. It seemed obvious that EPA had engineered a rationale to impose the controls it preferred. It is, after all, EPA policy under the current administration to see that all coal-fired power plants in the U.S. are retrofitted with scrubbers.
So I was a bit shocked when the 10th Circuit delivered a ruling last Friday that supported EPA’s takeover of Oklahoma’s Regional Haze authority. My shock turned to dismay after I read the majority (2-1) opinion. Here’s why: The decision’s logic rested on the credibility of EPA’s consultant.
“EPA’s consultant—Dr. Phyllis Fox—is anything but independent. Her resume demonstrates that she’s a go-to litigation witness for the Sierra Club”
A Record of Being Wrong
Most damning of all is that fact that Dr. Fox’s cost analysis has been proven wrong on the very subject that the 10th Circuit was considering.
As I noted above, she performed as an “independent” consultant for EPA in New Mexico and North Dakota, in addition to Oklahoma. In New Mexico, state officials estimated that BART for the San Juan Generating Station would cost $730 million; Dr. Phyllis Fox claimed it cost $340 million. And based on this, EPA disapproved New Mexico’s plan and imposed a Regional Haze federal plan in its stead. PNM subsequently solicited bids to actually build the technology. The utility received two bids, and the cheapest was $750 million!
Long story short: Congress wanted States to call the shots on Regional Haze. EPA justified a disapproval of Oklahoma’s Regional Haze plan based on the work of a supposedly “independent” consultant, who, in fact, is biased. More to the point, this “independent” witness has been proven wrong in a parallel situation that, in a logical world, would undermine her credibility.
It was a close decision, with two judges siding against one. The dissenting judge, moreover, was forceful. So I’ve not lost all hope of successful appeal.
By Ken Haapala, Executive Vice President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
The US Solicitor General, Department of Justice, and EPA attorneys filed their petition to the US Supreme Court requesting that it deny the petition from the group in which SEPP participates asking for the court to review the decision by the US Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the EPA Endangerment Finding (EF) that greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), endanger public health or welfare.
[…summary of petition case…]
As stated previously, the Court’s decision on whether or not to hear the case will be on legal grounds, not scientific grounds. Unable to link to the EPA petition at this time.
‘Nebraska’s Climate Scientists Afraid Of The Truth’
By Paul Homewood
[…]
“If it’s only natural (causes), but not human, we would not be interested,” [Martha Shulski, climatologist and director of the High Plains Regional Climate Center]
As the study of natural climate cycles seems to be beneath these “scientists”, perhaps I might offer my services. All the data is readily available from NOAA, so let’s start with precipitation.
[…]
The above plot suggests cycles of about 30 years in length, and this cycle, and its effects, are well known amongst scientists – the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, or AMO.
[…]
It is easy to see why Nebraska’s climatologists are so afraid to publish this sort of analysis, as it totally undermines their warnings of armageddon, at least on a local scale.
We the Geeks: “Polar Vortex” and Extreme Weather | The White House
Here at the White House, while we’re beginning to thaw from this week’s bone-chilling deep freeze, our discussions about the science of weather extremes are heating up.
We know that no single weather episode proves or disproves climate change. Climate refers to the patterns observed in the weather over time and space – in terms of averages, variations, and probabilities. But we also know that this week’s cold spell is of a type there’s reason to believe may become more frequent in a world that’s getting warmer, on average, because of greenhouse-gas pollution.
Join us this Friday, January 10th at 2:00 p.m. ET for We the Geeks: “Polar Vortex” and Extreme Weather, for a conversation with leading meteorologists, climate scientists, and weather experts about why temperatures dipped to such frigid lows this week, how weather experts turn raw data into useful forecasts, and what we know about extreme weather events in the context of a changing climate.
Cristin Dorgelo and resident polar-science expert Brendan Kelly from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will moderate the live discussion, to include:
* Stephanie Abrams, The Weather Channel
* Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd, President of the American Meteorological Society and Professor, University of Georgia
* Jim Overland, Arctic researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
* Jason Samenow, Capital Weather Gang’s chief meteorologist and the Washington Post’s Weather Editor
* Bernadette Woods Placky, Emmy-award winning Meteorologist at Climate Central
>[The White House] – “…..this week’s cold spell is of a type there’s reason to believe may become more frequent in a world that’s getting warmer, on average, because of greenhouse-gas pollution.”
In “recent years” cold spells have increased (i.e. since around 2007/08/09)
‘The Global Warming-Extreme Weather Link’
A Review Of The State Of Science
Madhav L. Khandekar
• Cold weather extremes have definitely increased in recent years; for example, the
severe winters in Europe (2012/13, 2011/12, 2009/10) and North America (2012/13,
2007/08). There have also been colder winters in parts of Asia (2012/13, 2002/03)
and South America (2007, 2010 and 2013).
‘Scientists: Americans are becoming weather wimps’
By SETH BORENSTEIN January 9, 2014 5:33 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) — We’ve become weather wimps.
As the world warms, the United States is getting fewer bitter cold spells like the one that gripped much of the nation this week. So when a deep freeze strikes, scientists say, it seems more unprecedented than it really is.
>”…seems more unprecedented than it really is” – Good grief!
What they’ve done is average out all the record lows by including the warm States like California. Here’s a list just of the Tuesday of the cold snap:
‘List of record low temperatures set Tuesday’
Doyle Rice, USA TODAY 4:06 p.m. EST January 7, 2014
At least 49 daily record lows were set across the country Tuesday morning, thanks to a fierce cold snap that’s bringing the coldest weather in decades to portions of the central, eastern and southern USA.
Bitterly cold air straight from the Arctic, courtesy of the polar vortex, will continue to shatter records through Tuesday and into early Wednesday before moderating temperatures return by Thursday and Friday.
A list of low-temperature records broken Tuesday morning:
“Yeah, well, those climate scientists calling us wimps are welcome to our fair city in Northern MN where they can experience for themselves just what -50F windchill feels like! For days on end.”
Sen. Inhofe on Obama’s Global Warming Claims: ‘The President Just Made that Up’
By Craig Bannister
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) told a Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee hearing today that the president must have fabricated two oft-repeated climate claims.
“Both statements are false,” Sen. Inhofe said of Obama’s global warming claims, since neither the EPA nor the U.N. IPCC climate group can provide any supporting statistics:
“On multiple occasions, and most recently on May 30th of last year, President Obama has said, and this is a quote he has used several times, he said that ‘the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even ten years ago’ and that ‘the climate is warming faster than anybody anticipated five or ten years ago.’
“Both statements are false, and through letters to you, Ms. McCarthy, and on the record in this Committee, we’ve asked the EPA to provide us with the data backing up these two statements, the two statements made by the president, but they don’t have any data and referred us to the UN IPCC. And, their scientists, apparently, the EPA thought they were the source of this.
“Well, we went there and they had nothing to back it up, so apparently the president just made that up.
Steve Goddard claims 1deg.C warming per century trend has been added to US temperature record by NOAA. As Goddard says, FOIA time. Reminds me of a certain NZ data set.
RSS does not show the NCDC discontinuity, and NCDC is diverging from RSS at almost 1C/century….
Bottom line is that the NCDC US temperature record is completely broken, and meaningless.
‘A look at the behind the scenes legal battle with the EPA over the ‘social cost of carbon’ and looming carbon tax’
Posted on February 24, 2014 by Anthony Watts
WUWT has been granted exclusive first access to this new legal document [comment from Francis J. Menton, Jr. Attorney at Law] challenging the EPA’s proposed use of calculations on SCC.
That jpg is copied from the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) et al’s Petition for a writ of certiorari. The brief is asking the Supreme Court to consider their (SLF’s) scientific argument that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) CO2 Endangerment Finding be dropped because of scientific and legal errors. See this thread re SLF Petition (up-thread from this current comment):
By MATTHEW DALY / Associated Press / March 6, 2014
WASHINGTON (AP) — Aiming at the heart of President Barack Obama’s strategy for fighting climate change, the Republican-controlled House voted Thursday to block the administration’s plan to limit carbon pollution from new power plants.
The bill targets Obama’s proposal for the Environmental Protection Agency to set the first national limits on heat-trapping carbon pollution from future power plants. It’s part of the GOP’s election-year strategy to fight back against what Republicans call a ‘‘war on coal’’ by the Obama administration.
The bill passed by a 229-183 vote. Ten Democrats, mostly from coal-producing states or the South, joined Republicans in support of it. Three Republicans opposed the bill.
A similar measure is pending in the Senate but faces a more difficult path.
Examiner Editorial: Chevron win in Ecuador case is huge defeat for Big Green, trial lawyers
By Washington Examiner | MARCH 7, 2014
It was lost among the week’s more dramatic news in Ukraine and Lois Lerner’s continued refusal to tell America and a congressional committee what she knows about the IRS scandal, but U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan landed a devastating blow against greenmail. That’s what can happen when Big Green environmental activists and class-action lawyers combine forces to use the federal court system to shake down corporate defendants for billions of dollars, usually via out-of-court settlements. Kaplan’s ruling concerned Big Oil giant Chevron on one side and New York trial lawyer Steve Donziger on the other.
[…]
Chevron fought Donziger until an Ecuadorian judge ruled against the oil company. In the course of its appeals, Chevron discovered how far Donziger and his Big Green accomplices had gone to win. As a result, Chevron filed a separate suit accusing Donziger and others of fraud. Kaplan provided an amazing description in his 500-page ruling in Chevron’s favor:
“They submitted fraudulent evidence. They coerced one judge, first to use a court-appointed, supposedly impartial, “global expert” to make an overall damages assessment and, then, to appoint to that important role a man whom Donziger hand-picked and paid to “totally play ball” … They then paid a Colorado consulting firm secretly to write all or most of the global expert’s report, falsely presented the report as the work of the court-appointed and supposedly impartial expert, and told half-truths or worse to U.S. courts in attempts to prevent exposure of that and other wrongdoing. Ultimately, [Donziger’s team] wrote the [Ecuadorian] court’s judgment themselves and promised $500,000 to the Ecuadorian judge to rule in their favor and sign their judgment. If ever there were a case warranting equitable relief with respect to a judgment procured by fraud, this is it.”
The Colorado firm Kaplan mentioned is Stratus Consulting, which since 2009 has received more than $180 million via 1,308 federal contracts including 811 through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Supreme Court Of The United States (SCOTUS) Blog [Bloomberg Law]
Southeastern Legal Foundation v. Environmental Protection Agency
Issue: Whether EPA permissibly determined that its regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles triggered permitting requirements under the Clean Air Act for stationary sources that emit greenhouse gases.
Linked with:
Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency
Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency
Pacific Legal Foundation v. Environmental Protection Agency
American Chemistry Council v. Environmental Protection Agency
Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. Environmental Protection Agency
Energy-Intensive Manufacturers Working Group on Greenhouse Gas Regulation v. Environmental Protection Agency
Texas v. Environmental Protection Agency
Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. Environmental Protection Agency
May 23 2013 Brief amici curiae of Scientists filed.
I. The Conclusion That EPA Drew From Its Three Lines Of Evidence Is Demonstrably Invalid…. 7
A. First Line Of Evidence: EPA’s GHG Fingerprint (Or Hot Spot) Theory …………. 9
B. Second Line Of Evidence: The Purported Unusual Rise In GAST ………. 13
C. Third Line Of Evidence: Climate Models ……………………………………………… 16
II. Serious Deficiencies In EPA’s Process Contributed To Its Scientific Errors …………. 21
Southeastern Legal Foundation v. Environmental Protection Agency
Opinion [hotlink to pdf, link below], Jun 23, 2014
Holding: The Clean Air Act neither compels nor permits the Environmental Protection Agency to adopt an interpretation of the Clean Air Act requiring a stationary source of pollution to obtain a “Prevention of Significant Deterioration” or Title V permit on the sole basis of its potential greenhouse-gas emission. However, EPA reasonably interpreted the Clean Air Act to require sources that would need permits based on their emission of chemical pollutants to comply with “best available control technology” for greenhouse gases.
Judgment: Affirmed in part, reversed in part, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Scalia on June 23, 2014. Justice Scalia announced the judgement of the Court and delivered an opinion, Parts I and II of which were for the Court. Justice Thomas and Justice Alito joined the opinion as to Parts I, II-A, II-B-1, and Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan joined as to Part II-B-2. Justice Breyer filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Justice Ginsburg, Justice Sotomayor, and Justice Kagan joined. Justice Alito filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Justice Thomas joined.
Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency
From Wikipedia
In a fractured decision, the Court largely upheld the ability of the EPA to regulate greenhouse emissions
Opinion of the Court
Justice Scalia authored the majority opinion, which Justices Roberts and Kennedy joined in full. The Court ruled that the EPA can regulate greenhouse emissions on power plants and other large stationary sources of pollution, but the agency overstepped its authority when it started to use those same regulations on smaller stationary sources like shopping centers, apartment buildings and schools
Justice Breyer wrote a concurring/dissenting opinion, joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Breyer argued that the EPA should have been allowed to interpret the “any air pollutant” language broadly to also include greenhouse emissions: “I do not agree with the Court that the only way to avoid an absurd or otherwise impermissible result in these cases is to create an atextual greenhouse gas exception to the phrase ‘any air pollutant’.”[11]
Alito, joined by Thomas, wrote a second concurring/dissenting opinion, arguing that the EPA should not be able to regulate the larger sources of greenhouse emissions either using those regulations: “The Clean Air Act was developed for use in regulating the emission of conventional pollutants and is simply not suited for use with respect to greenhouse gases.”[12] He cited two scenarios of incompatibility between greenhouses gases and normal pollutants, which caused the EPA to eventually either declare that officials may disregard some provisions in the Act,[13] or give authorities “a great deal of discretion”.
The petition (Scientist’s brief) appears to have been ignored, viz:
I. The Conclusion That EPA Drew From Its Three Lines Of Evidence Is Demonstrably Invalid
A. First Line Of Evidence: EPA’s GHG Fingerprint (Or Hot Spot) Theory
B. Second Line Of Evidence: The Purported Unusual Rise In GAST
C. Third Line Of Evidence: Climate Models
II. Serious Deficiencies In EPA’s Process Contributed To Its Scientific Errors
The full Opinion, which should detail consideration of the petition (or not), is here:
America’s Power @AmericasPower
Pretend impact worth more than real people? Enviros view those hurt by #EPA regs as acceptable “collateral damage.” http://fxn.ws/1nxI3l9
3:28 AM – 24 Jun 2014
Leads to this article:
‘In Team Obama’s world US workers are ‘collateral damage’ to green agenda’
By Stephen Moore
One of the leading leftwing environmentalists last week described the hundreds of thousands of Americans who may lose their jobs due to the Obama administration’s new anti-carbon regulations as “collateral damage” in the fight against global warming. The offensive comments were issued by William S. Becker, the head of the Climate Action Project, a well-funded environmental group.
In his piece in the Huffington Post praising the new Environmental Protection Agency regulations to stop climate change, he lamented that “there is nothing explicit in the [Obama] plan to mitigate or adapt to the economic disruption the clean energy transition will cause for coal and oil-country families.” He said that the pain and suffering to the estimated 200,000 families put out of work is an “evolutionary step in technology and the economy” and a move toward “economic progress.” Mr. Becker wants more government programs to help the “disrupted” families, as though yet another government job training program will solve the problem that these workers’ lives have been turned upside down. Perhaps this is what the left means by “environmental justice.”
The “let them eat cake” attitude may strike readers as unbelievably offensive and cavalier. Imagine the outcry if a Republican referred to middle class job losers as acceptable “collateral damage.” The story would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country and if Mr. Becker were the head of an industry group he would almost surely be facing intense pressure to resign. But Mr. Becker is at least giving an honest assessment of the negative impact of the radical anti-carbon lobby’s crusade on middle class families.
The job losses in the coal mining, oil and drilling, construction and trucking industries are acceptable to the left climate change zealots, especially if it means the U.S. will take a mostly symbolic step to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. One study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce finds that the new EPA regulations will destroy 200,000 mostly blue collar energy jobs, reduce the U.S. GDP by about $50 billion a year and cost families thousands of dollars over the next decade in higher energy costs. The workers who will be harmed live in places like Wheeling, West Virginia and Bakersfield, California and hundreds of energy industry towns in between.
Will voters in these areas tolerate these disruptions to their lives? Will they accept that they are”colletaral damage” to the radical green movement? We will see.
Stephen Moore is a Fox News contributor. He serves as chief economist at the Heritage Foundation.
William S. Becker, Executive Director, Presidential Climate Action Project
[…]
When we speak about environmental justice, the term usually refers to the people of the world who are being hit hardest by climate change, but who are least responsible for it and least able to cope. They are the people of poor nations who bear no responsibility for the carbon in the atmosphere today, but who are suffering the heaviest consequences of global warming. We in the industrial world are enjoying the comforts and conveniences of fossil fuels while billions in the world are suffering the damages.
Similarly, there are issues of economic justice that seem as threatening to coal families as flooding is in Bangladesh or famine is to families in Sudan. It is not the fault of generations of soft-rock miners that the coal they provided turns out to be damaging us in ways we are just beginning to see. Yet they will suffer some of the greatest economic impact as the nation’s coal use declines.
While it is ridiculous to accuse President Obama of warring against coal, it is fair to ask what his climate action plan can do to ensure that America’s transition to clean energy is compassionate and just.
The plan President Obama announced a year ago contains several directives designed to help communities hit hardest by the physical impacts of climate change. In a sentence in the middle of Page 13, he directs that “through annual federal agency Environmental Justice Progress Reports, the Administration will continue to identify innovative ways to help our most vulnerable communities prepare for and recover from the impacts of climate change.” On Page 14 he directs that “federal agencies will report on the impacts of climate change on other key sectors and strategies to address them, with priority efforts focusing on health, transportation, food supplies, oceans, and coastal communities”.
However, there is nothing explicit in the plan to mitigate or adapt to the economic disruption the clean energy transition will cause for coal- and oil-country families. We know that economic disruptions are part of progress. They are the collateral damage of every evolutionary step in technology or the economy.
‘Supreme Court Revives EPA Rule on Air Pollution Across State Lines’
Court’s 6-2 Ruling Is Victory for Obama Administration; 28 States Will Have to Reduce Power-Plant Emissions
[…]
In court papers, the EPA said upwind states can be significant contributors to pollution problems in downwind locations, citing New Haven, Conn., where the agency said 93% of the ozone pollution comes from out-of-state emissions.
“Required to balance the possibilities of under-control and over-control, EPA must have leeway in fulfilling its statutory mandate,” Justice Ginsburg wrote. She added that if a state concludes it has been forced to reduce emissions below the relevant threshold, it could file a narrower lawsuit based on a particular grievance instead of seeking wholesale invalidation of the EPA’s effort.
Justice Antonin Scalia signaled strong disagreement with the ruling by reading parts of his dissent from the bench, saying EPA hadn’t followed the approach set forth by Congress. “Today’s decision feeds the uncontrolled growth of the administrative state at the expense of government by the people,” he said. Justice Clarence Thomas joined Justice Scalia in dissent.
Podesta: Congress Can’t Stop Obama On Global Warming
Written by Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller on May 06 2014.
House adviser John Podesta told reporters Monday afternoon that Congress could not derail the Obama administration’s efforts to unilaterally enact policies to fight global warming.
Podesta said that the president was committed to using executive orders to pass regulations under the Clean Air Act to limit carbon dioxide emissions that they say cause global warming.
“They may try, but there are no takers at this end of Pennsylvania Avenue,” Podesta told reporters at a Monday press conference at the White House.
Republicans and some Democrats in Congress have urged the Obama administration to scale back their climate goals because of the adverse impact of new regulations on the coal industry. Coal supporters have portrayed the administration’s actions as the “war on coal” due to huge job losses in coal states like Kentucky and West Virginia.
“We’re getting the living crap beaten out of us,” West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin told President Obama’s nominee to be the country’s top energy regulator last year. “There has been nothing more beat up than coal.”
“They just beat the living daylights out of little West Virginia, but they sure like what we produce,” Manchin told former nominee Ron Binz. “We could do it a lot better if we had a government working with us as a partner.”
EPA Chief Promises To Go After Republicans Who Question Agency Science
Michael Bastasch, The Daily Caller
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy has issued a warning to Republicans who continue to question the integrity of the agency’s scientific data: we’re coming for you.
McCarthy told an audience at the National Academy of Sciences on Monday morning the agency will go after a “small but vocal group of critics” who are arguing the EPA is using “secret science” to push costly clean air regulations.
“Those critics conjure up claims of EPA secret science — but it’s not really about EPA science or secrets. It’s about challenging the credibility of world renowned scientists and institutions like Harvard University and the American Cancer Society,” McCarthy said, according to Politico.
“It’s about claiming that research is secret if researchers protect confidential personal health data from those who are not qualified to analyze it — and won’t agree to protect it,” she added. “If EPA is being accused of secret science because we rely on real scientists to conduct research, and independent scientists to peer review it, and scientists who’ve spent a lifetime studying the science to reproduce it — then so be it.”
Republicans Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana and Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas have led the charge on pressing the EPA to make publicly available the scientific data behind its clean air regulations. McCarthy promised she would make such data publicly available during her confirmation process last year. Now her refusal to cough up the data has angered Republicans.
“EPA’s leadership is willfully ignoring the big picture and defending EPA’s practices of using science that is, in fact, secret due to the refusal of the agency to share the underlying data with Congress and the American public,” said Vitter.
“We’re not asking, and we’ve never asked, for personal health information, and it is inexcusable for EPA to justify billions of dollars of economically significant regulations on science that is kept hidden from independent reanalysis and congressional oversight,” Vitter added.
‘Integrity and Objectivity: The Shaken Pillars of Environmental Science’
Jul 10, 2014 | Rachelle DeJong
In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency began classifying greenhouse gases as pollutants and regulating their emissions. That meant that normal economic activities—tilling a small farm, running a local store—that produced normal amounts of the naturally occurring vapor became potentially subject to EPA standards and, for those that exceeded the limits, crushing fines of up to $37,500 per day.
The EPA’s authority to regulate emissions, though, rests on shaky legal and environmental grounds. A small nonprofit of indomitable determination, the Institute for Trade, Standards, and Sustainable Development (ITSSD) has set itself the task of finding out whether the EPA has been telling the truth. NAS, as an academic organization that seeks to promote rigorous science and open debate, and as an interested observer of the way the EPA’s findings become the basis for college campus sustainability initiatives, has a stake in promoting accountability and transparency. EPA pronouncements find their way into campus offices of sustainability, greenhouse gas reduction plans, and sustainability tracking sheets. If ITSSD’s investigations discredit the EPA’s pronouncements, colleges and university should guard the integrity of their environmental commitments and verify the EPA’s findings before acting on them.
MEMORANDUM
To: Senate Democrats
From: Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray
Re: The impact of climate change on the federal budget
Date: Friday, August 1, 2014
The scientific consensus on climate change and the human activity that contributes to it is well established.1 Unprecedented levels of heat-trapping emissions—primarily carbon dioxide—cause temperatures to climb, altering weather patterns, triggering a rise in sea levels, and creating the conditions for more frequent and intense extreme weather events. Scientists continue to conduct research into the wide-ranging projected effects of climate change, but it is clear that climate change will dramatically impact the health and wellbeing of families and communities across the
country.2
A less-noted consequence of climate change, which also underscores the need to act, is its impact on the federal budget. Climate change, if left unaddressed, will both weaken economic growth and impose additional direct budgetary costs on the federal government. As a result, climate change poses an increasing threat to the federal government’s already challenging long-term fiscal outlook.
Democratic claims that “extreme weather” was becoming more common as carbon dioxide levels increase have been disputed by scientists who say the data tells a different story.
“It is misleading and just plain incorrect to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally,” University of Colorado climate scientist Dr. Roger Pielke said in his testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last year. “It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.”
“Hurricanes have not increased in the U.S. in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1900,” Pielke added. “The same holds for tropical cyclones globally since at least 1970.”
But Democrats have not relented in their push to convince the public that extreme weather will continue to get worse.
WASHINGTON — Twelve states filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration on Friday seeking to block an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate coal-fired power plants in an effort to stem climate change.
The plaintiffs are led by West Virginia and include states that are home to some of the largest producers of coal and consumers of coal-fired electricity
[…]
The suit was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The other plaintiffs are Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming.
‘Fed Up With Govt Misconduct, Federal Judge Takes Nuclear Option’
Federal Prosecutor Alleges Boss Pressured Him To Engage in ‘Unethical Conduct’; Judge Calls Abuses ‘Egregious,’ ‘Pervasive,” and “Reprehensible”
By Sidney Powell | 10/15/14 9:45pm
In perhaps the most stunning documentation yet of abuses by Eric Holder’s Justice Department, two former Assistant United States Attorneys spoke to defense attorneys and revealed appalling deceit and corruption of justice. This latest litigation time bomb has exploded from multi-million dollar litigation originally brought by the Department of Justice against Sierra Pacific based on allegations that the lumber company and related defendants were responsible for a wildfire that destroyed 65,000 acres in California.
In what was dubbed the “Moonlight Fire” case, the tables are now turned. The defendants have discovered new evidence and filed a stunning motion. The new evidence and disclosures are being taken seriously by the Chief Judge of the Eastern District of California—as they should be. In a shocking action, Judge Morrison C. England Jr. ordered the recusal of every federal judge in the Eastern District of California.
[…]
The Sacramento Bee reported on the Defendant’s filing. Indeed, the Defendants’ motion informs us that a former Assistant United States Attorney came forward and disclosed that he believes that he was removed from the original prosecution by “his boss, David Shelledy, chief of the civil division in the United States Attorney’s office,” because he “rebuffed” pressure to “engage in unethical conduct as a lawyer.” Of course, like other former prosecutors who were unethical, Mr. Shelledy is to receive Attorney General Holder’s highest award for excellence—this week.
‘Dem. Congressman on Witch Hunt Against Climate Scientists’
10:13 AM, Feb 25, 2015 • By MARK HEMINGWAY
On his blog this morning, Roger Pielke Jr. at the University of Colorado, a respected climate scientist, reveals that he was one of seven academics being being investigated by Rep. Raul Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources. Grijalva wants to know all university financial disclosure policies that are applicable to Pielke, detailed information about any sources of external funding and grants he may have received, as well as any communications related to external funding. He also wants copies of any speeches and testimony before lawmakers Pielke has delivered, as well as salary and travel expense information.
You can read Grijalva’s full letter to CU here [hotlink], but per the letter, here is Pielke’s supposed crime:
“Prof. Roger Pielke, Jr., at CU’s Center for Science and Technology Policy Research has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress on climate change and its economic impacts. His 2013 Senate testimony featured the claim, often repeated, that it is “incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.”
According to Pielke, this is nothing but a witch hunt: [hotlink]
[Pielke, see link above] – “The letter goes on to note that John Holdren, President Obama’s science advisor, “has highlighted what he believes were serious misstatements by Prof. Pielke.”
April 1 — Four Republican senators are seeking additional information from the Environmental Protection Agency on the science linking climate change to drought, hurricanes and increased temperatures, including an analysis of climate change modeling results.
In an April 1 letter, Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) asked EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to defend recent statements that there have been more frequent and more intense hurricanes and droughts and detail whether climate models have accurately predicted temperature increases.
The questions stem from a March 4 hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the EPA’s fiscal year 2016 budget request.
During that hearing, Republican members of the committee asked McCarthy several questions about climate change, including a line of questioning from Sessions on increasing global soil moisture, fewer major hurricanes in recent years and other data points that he suggested don’t support the existence of climate change.
In the letter, the senators said that none of the “clear and straightforward” questions on climate science asked during the hearing were directly answered by McCarthy. The senators asked McCarthy to provide data and analysis comparing Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate models with actual global average temperatures.
“Given that the Administration’s proposal to fundamentally change the nature of domestic energy generation is based on the apparent need to avoid `devastating’ climate impacts to the United States and the planet, it is imperative that the agency be candid and forthright in assessing the reality of this projection,” the senators said.
The letter requested that the EPA respond no later than April 21.
[…]
At the March budget hearing, Sessions asked McCarthy to cite specific evidence that climate change modeling has proven to be correct. After McCarthy asked Sessions to clarify which models he was referring to, Sessions said it was “stunning” that the head of the EPA doesn’t know about climate modeling.
Temperature Rise Comparison Requested
In the letter, Sessions and the other senators requested that McCarthy provide an EPA-produced chart comparing the actual global average temperature increases with the predictions derived from IPCC climate models.
Additionally, the senators asked the EPA to detail the steps the agency has taken to review the accuracy of climate projections and how much of the EPA’s fiscal 2016 budget request of $8.6 billion would be allocated to monitoring the accuracy of climate projections.
Sessions, Inhofe, Wicker and Barrasso poking a bit of borax the way of McCarthy and the EPA. May as well have some fun at their expense, imagine the wriggling and squirming going on there.
1. In its 2013 Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded the following:
“[T]here is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century, owing to lack of direct observations, geographical inconsistencies in the trends, and dependencies of inferred trends on the index choice. [….snip…]”
Do you agree or disagree with the IPCC’s conclusion? Please provide all data, analyses, and other evidence that you reviewed and relied on to reach your conclusion.
Hurricanes/cyclones
1. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report concluded the following:
“Current data sets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century. . . . No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin.”
Do you agree or disagree with the IPCC assessments regarding data sets on global tropical cyclone frequency and trends in annual tropical storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes in the North Atlantic basin?
[and see 2 – 5]
Temperature data
1. Dating back to the 1970’s, IPCC climate models have historically predicted a significant increase in global temperatures. At the March 2015 budget hearing, Senator Sessions asked “[i]f you take the average of the models predicting how fast the temperature would increase, is the temperature in fact increasing less than that or more than that?”
You replied that you could not “answer that question specifically,” but later committed to submitting written information explaining whether you believe the models have been proven correct and whether temperatures have increased less than projected or more than projected.
Please provide data and analyses showing actual global average temperatures since 1979 versus IPCC predictions, including an EPA-produced chart comparing actual global average temperature increases since 1979 (when satellite temperature data became available) versus the latest IPCC predictions. Please also provide your conclusion on whether IPCC climate models have proven correct.
[and see 2]
Climate impact monitoring
[see 1]
2. What portion of EPA’s budget request for FY 2016 is dedicated to monitoring and verifying the accuracy of the agency’s climate projections?
“Do you agree or disagree with the IPCC’s conclusion?”
It is deeply gratifying that somebody backing the alarmist side is being asked questions like these in a forum which requires them to make answers that will be scrutinised. Who would have thought that the seminal debate on climate science might take place on a political stage? Thank God for even the similitude of democracy. I should raise your comments to a post, but when? Family calls again today, so I’ll see.
‘Open Letter to U.S. Senators Ted Cruz, James Inhofe and Marco Rubio’
Bob Tisdale / April 14, 2015
Subject: Questions about Climate Model-Based Science
From: Bob Tisdale – Independent Climate Researcher
To: The Honorable Ted Cruz, James Inhofe and Marco Rubio
Dear Senators Cruz, Inhofe and Rubio:
I am writing you as chairs of the Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and of the Committee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard. I am an independent researcher who studies global warming and climate change, and I am probably best known for my articles at the science weblog WattsUpWithThat, where I would be considered an investigative reporter.
I have a few very basic questions for you about climate model-based science. They are:
# Why are taxpayers funding climate model-based research when those models are not simulating Earth’s climate?
# Why are taxpayers funding climate model-based research when each new generation of climate models provides the same basic answers?
# Redundancy: why are taxpayers funding 5 climate models in the U.S.?
# Why aren’t climate models providing the answers we need?
Example: Why didn’t the consensus of regional climate models predict the timing, extent and duration of the Californian drought?
I have discussed and provided support for those concerns in the following.
Note: I began this letter a couple of months ago, back when it was announced that you would be chairs of those committees. Two of you are now running for President. Even with that in mind, I hope that you and your staffs will consider these questions.
# In the consolidated cases, 15 states and the nation’s largest privately owned coal producer raised the first of many legal objections against the rule.
# The president’s 2016 budget requests $52 million to hire lawyers to defend the rule.
‘Obama and the environment: Clean power or power play?’
Written by Richard O. Faulk, The Hill on 24 April 2015.
Recently, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals heard one of the strangest cases ever argued in a federal appellate court – a seemingly esoteric controversy that, in any other context, might be relegated to obscurity. But since winning this case is the linchpin President Obama needs to win the “War Against Coal,” the EPA has staked everything on pulling an oversized rabbit out of a very small hat.
Cue State of West Virginia v. EPA and Murray Energy v. EPA, two joined cases comprising the first challenge to the president’s recent efforts to cement his climate change legacy. Fifteen states, along with select coal companies, have sued for an “extraordinary writ” to prevent the EPA from promulgating new carbon regulations set to be finalized this summer.
This legal imbroglio began with the president’s desire to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from coal-fired electrical power plants. CO2 is the principal “greenhouse gas” blamed for global warming. As such, it is now the focus of the most aggressive EPA action under the Clean Air Act since its passage decades ago.
Last year, as part of the president’s proposed Clean Power Plan, the EPA began drafting rules expected to force states to curb emissions within a year – an onerous burden, as the states involved in Thursday’s challenge will likely agree. But it is also dubious from a federalism standpoint. The EPA claims the right to regulate emission concentrations “beyond the fence line” – without restricting its inquiries to amounts actually emitted from power plants. Thus, its authority would extend beyond power generators to consider dispatch and retail demand, areas historically regulated by the states, and not the federal government.
Beyond this unprecedented regulatory preemption of state authority lies an even greater and more dangerous overreach. The EPA’s argument confidently hinges on convincing the courts that the Clean Air Act doesn’t mean what it says. By its plain language, the bill prohibits the EPA from regulating the power plants from which these emissions derive. Moreover, coal plants are already addressed under an entirely different section of the bill than the one EPA insists justifies its new powers.
Under a less ambitious administration, that would be the end of the controversy. Instead, the EPA identified one of the most unusual Congressional oversights in American history to prove its position.
As the result of a “drafting error,” Congress actually passed two versions of the provision at issue, 111(d) – one which prohibits the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants, and one which permits such regulation. The prohibitive version was published in the United States Code, while the permissive one was printed elsewhere. With a regulatory “sleight of hand,” the EPA now claims its right to a “deferential” interpretation of the Clean Air Act, and argues that the more permissive section should be applied.
If the EPA’s argument prevails, the consequences cannot be overstated. In spite of a lack of clear statutory authorization, this unelected body could take complete command of energy production and the manner by which it is used throughout the United States. Major components of our economy that have never before been affected by EPA regulation or the Clean Air Act may be subjected to its regulatory authority.
At least the Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress. Here, this vast new scheme has sprung full-grown from the president’s imagination.
Fortunately, the D.C. Circuit, and ultimately the Supreme Court, can still prevent this imperial power grab. Less than a year ago, in reviewing the scope of the EPA’s regulatory capabilities on greenhouse gases, the High Court expressed a “measure of skepticism” when the EPA discovered an “unheralded power to regulate” a “significant portion of the American economy.” The Court warned that it “expect[s] Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of ‘vast economic and political significance.’” To say the least, Congress has not done so here.
Obama, through his EPA, is acting beyond the scope of his authority – a persistent symptom that threatens the Constitutional separation and balance of powers that has protected our liberties since our Republic was founded. It is time, indeed past time, for our nation’s courts to pay heed and, echoing Chief Justice Marshall, once again stress “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Such a rebuke will remind the President that, despite his immense power, he cannot govern our democracy with imaginative strokes of his pen.
Faulk is a trial, appellate, energy and environmental lawyer. He is senior director for Energy, Natural Resources and the Environment for the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University School of Law and a partner with Hollingsworth, LLP, in Washington, DC.
Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov disappeared from public view in early May, 1984 after he had begun a hunger strike to get permission for his wife, Yelena Bonner, to travel to the U.S. for heart surgery. In the Soviet paradise, wanting one’s anti-Soviet wife to live, and, worse still, to be saved by evil capitalist surgeons and not by the holy surgeons of the Soviet utopia, was, clearly, an exercise in abnormal psychology.
Sakharov was undoubtedly “mentally ill.” No wonder, therefore, that Soviet authorities forcibly confined him in a closed ward of the Semashko Hospital in Gorky, where he was force-fed and given drugs to alter his state of mind. This is how Soviet authorities believed they would get the Soviet dissident to not only stop caring about his wife, but to also make a public recantation about his abnormal anti-Soviet views – a gambit in which they ultimately failed.
The Soviet system had a long and cruel record of perverting psychiatry to abuse political dissidents. Labelling many thought-criminals ”insane,” the communist regime institutionalized them under horrifying conditions in mental hospitals and force-fed them dangerous and mind-shattering drugs. Dissidents such as Pyotr Grigorenko, Joseph Brodsky, Alexander Esenin-Volpin, Vladimir Bukovsky and Natalya Gorbanevskaya were among the brave heroes who did not elude this grotesque form of Soviet barbarity. Grigorenko was forcibly committed to a special psychiatric hospital for criticizing the Khrushchev regime. Brodksy was sent to mental hospitals for not writing the right kind of poetry; his treatments involved “tranquilizing” injections, sleep deprivation and forced freezing baths. Esenin-Volpin was institutionalized in the Leningrad Special Psychiatric Hospital for his anti-Soviet thoughts. Bukovsky was also confined to the same psychiatric hospital for “anti-Soviet agitation.” Gorbanevskaya was committed to a psychiatric hospital for, among other “abnormality” crimes, attending the 1968 Red Square demonstration against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
And now enter the leftist totalitarians of the Obama stripe. While anti-Soviet ideas caused dissidents to be confined to psychiatric institutions in the Soviet Union, the soil is now being fertilized for the same process in the American leftist land of Alinskyite hope and change. Indeed, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy consoled leftists worldwide this past Tuesday, engaging in Soviet-style labeling vis-à-vis global warming dissidents that would have made Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov proud. Addressing an audience at a White House summit, she stated that “normal people,” and not climate skeptics, would win the debate on global warming. She made the comment in the context of why the EPA had issued a recent report on global warming’s negative impacts on public health, stressing that, “It’s normal human beings that want us to do the right thing, and we will if you help us.”
‘US Supreme Court blocks Obama’s limits on power plants’
ADAM LIPTAK and CORAL DAVENPORT, NYT, June 30, 2015
President Barack Obama suffers a defeat in the courts.
The US Supreme Court on Monday blocked one of the Obama administration’s most ambitious environmental initiatives: an Environmental Protection Agency regulation meant to limit emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants.
Industry groups and some 20 states had challenged the EPA’s decision to regulate the emissions, saying the agency had failed to take into account the punishing costs its rule would impose.
The Clean Air Act required the regulation to be “appropriate and necessary.” The challengers said the agency had run afoul of that law by deciding to regulate the emissions without first undertaking a cost-benefit analysis.
Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: “It is not rational, never mind ‘appropriate,’ to impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few dollars in health or environmental benefits. Statutory context supports this reading.”
[…]
The decision, Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 14-46, does not strike down the rule, but it means the EPA will have to review and rewrite it, taking costs into consideration. Industries will be expected to comply with the current rule until a revised one is issued.
Cool summer has vintners fretting about late harvest
NCDC data shows that the contiguous USA has not warmed in the past decade, summers are cooler, winters are getting colder
Posted on November 5, 2011 by Anthony Watts
Warming, for the USA seems pretty “stalled” to me in the last 10-15 years. Bear in mind that BEST uses the same data source for the USA, the USCHN2 data. Granted, this isn’t a standard 30 year climatology period we are examining, but the question about the last 10 years is still valid. “Aerosol masking” has been the reason given by the Team. Blame China.
See update [at end of post]: New comparison graph of US temperatures in 1999 to present added – quite an eye opener – Anthony
>>>>>>>>>>>>.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/05/ncdc-data-shows-that-the-contiguous-usa-has-not-warmed-in-the-past-decade-summers-are-cooler-winters-are-getting-colder/#comment-789716
Is La Nina cooling San Diego’s weather?
Temperatures continue well below average in Southern California
Record breaking cold across southern Arizona
Posted: Nov 30, 2010 10:40 AM
Updated: Nov 30, 2010 11:00 AM
SOUTHERN ARIZONA – A number of locations feel record low temperatures this morning, says News 4 Meteorologist Chris Nallan.
Tucson, Douglas, Benson, and Safford are just a few that feel the extreme cold this morning. Tucson dropped to 23 breaking the previous record 24 set back in 1934. Douglas shatterd the record of 19 set back in 2004 dropping to 11. Benson also broke a record plunging down to 10 degrees early this morning.
Northern Mexico cold snap paralyzes Ciudad Juarez
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico | Fri Feb 4, 2011
(Reuters) – Freezing weather and snow paralyzed the border city of Ciudad Juarez on Friday, knocking out electricity and water in thousands of homes and closing roads and factories.
Record low temperatures hit the city, across from El Paso, Texas, from Tuesday, which is already suffering from some of the worst violence in Mexico’s drug war, fluctuating between -0.4 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-18 and -10 degrees Celsius).
“There have been cold temperatures in the past, but nothing that has lasted for so many days. It’s been 40 years since the city has seen an emergency like this,” said Efren Matamoros, head of the city’s civil protection service.
Units at 17 power stations — with 6,792 megawatts of generating capacity — in northern Mexico shut down due to the unusually cold weather, forcing the national electricity monopoly to ask factories to curb usage…….continues
35 zoo animals freeze to death in northern Mexico
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — Thirty-five animals at a zoo in the northern Mexico state of Chihuahua have frozen to death during the region’s coldest weather in six decades.
Largest US food distributor declares force majeure on fresh fruit and vegetables due to “devastating” freeze of “unprecedented magnitude”
Sysco, the largest wholesale food distributor in the US and primary supplier to most supermarket chains, has declared force majeure (the “act of God” clause) that allows suspension of contracted prices and supply of fresh fruit and vegetables due to the “unprecedented magnitude” of “devastating” and “extreme freezing temperatures” in a “very broad section of major growing regions in Mexico.” Sysco also reports “Florida is normally a major supplier for these items as well, but they have already been struck with severe freeze damage in December and January and up until now have had to purchase product out of Mexico to fill their commitments, that is no longer an option.”
See
Release from Sysco to supermarket buyers
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/02/largest-us-food-distributor-declares.html
Freezing temperatures have growers working overtime | Fresno, California
[…]
That protection hasn’t come cheap. Nilmeier uses wind machines to prevent his oranges from frost damage. The machines run on 15 gallons of propane fuel an hour. “I’ve got 6 of them out there and we’ve been averaging about 8 hours of wind machine running per night. So I’m looking between 16 and 17,000 dollars a night,” said Nilmeier.
…The citrus industry is estimated to be worth more than $342 million in Fresno County according to the Agriculture Department. The County’s citrus industry loss more than $117 million in the last major freeze in 2007, a financial tragedy growers don’t want to see again.
>>>>>>>>>
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/ag_watch&id=8457551
Mandarins hit hardest by cold temperatures
January 27, 2012 8:44 AM
Mandarins suffered the worst damage from the more than four weeks of below freezing temperatures that struck the citrus belt this winter.
California Citrus Mutual (CCM) estimated Wednesday that approximately 20% of this season’s mandarin crop will be lost to frost damage.
Mandarins is about a $100 million a year crop in Tulare County.
The general consensus across the industry is positive in respect to fruit quality considering the obstacles growers were faced with this season.
However, the more than 25 days of temperatures dipping at or below freezing cost growers millions of dollars. The number of freeze nights was a record.
Temperatures many times dipped below 26 degrees, but conditions were good enough that many growers were able to raise those temperatures 3 to 4 degrees, above safe levels.
Temperatures below 28 degrees for more than four hours can cause serious damage.
Growers have spent on average $300-$400 per acre on frost protection, totaling approximately $100 million to preserve the 2011-2012 crop and ensure only quality fruit reaches the consumer, stated Citrus Mutual in a press release.
Frost protection was utilized in December and January in order to raise grove temperatures to 32 degrees, the threshold for mandarin varieties.
[…]
Damage to the navel crop was significantly less with an estimated 10% of the crop damaged. Navel oranges have a much higher tolerance of cold temperatures, with a threshold of 27 degrees versus 32 degrees for mandarin varieties.
http://www.recorderonline.com/news/temperatures-51518-mandarins-citrus.html
SUPER SWIMMERS: “We knew it was going to be cold,” he said. “But we weren’t quite ready for it to be that cold.”
Old Farmer’s Almanac: Global cooling to continue
September snow surprise in Montana
Skiers rejoice as early snow hits the West
By Laura Bly, USA TODAY Posted Oct 27 2010 9:28AM
Forget the jack o’ lanterns: With this week’s early snowstorms from Wyoming to Colorado – and forecasts for a stellar season, thanks to La Niña – skiers and snowboarders are dreaming of carving turns down powder-draped slopes.
Snow Is A Thing Of The Past
Posted on November 9, 2010 by stevengoddard
Wolf Creek Ski Area is open
US Winter Temperatures Dropping At A Rate Of 40 Degrees Per Century
November 14, 2010 by stevengoddard
Since the start of the millennium, US winter temperatures have been plummeting.
It was also the snowiest decade on record in the Northern Hemisphere.
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
410 PM PST WED NOV 24 2010
.DISCUSSION…AS OF 3:10 PM PST WEDNESDAY…FORECAST FOCUS IS ON RECORD COLD TEMPERATURES TONIGHT ALONG WITH FREEZE/FROST ADVISORIES.
CONTINUED COLD ON THURSDAY NIGHT/FRIDAY MORNING…THEN RAIN BY
SATURDAY.
FOLKS WILL REMEMBER THANKSGIVING 2010 FOR ITS RECORD COLD
TEMPERATURES (AND DEEP SNOW IN THE SIERRA IF YOUR A SKIER). ALREADY
BROKE RECORD LOWS TODAY FOR THE CITY GOING BACK 104 YEARS. CONDITIONS ARE RIPE FOR AN EVEN COLDER NIGHT TONIGHT. CURRENTLY LATE AFTERNOON DEWPOINTS ARE RUNNING IN THE UPPER TEENS TO LOWER/MID 20S. RULE OF THUMB SUGGESTS THATS HOW COLD OVERNIGHT LOWS COULD GET IN AN IDEAL SET UP. ONLY LIMITING FACTOR AT THIS POINT IS WINDS ARE STILL
RELATIVELY STRONG…EVEN AT THE SURFACE AND ABOVE THE BOUNDARY
LAYER. DOWN HERE IN MONTEREY UNDER FULL SUNSHINE WE CANT CRACK 50
DEGREES THIS AFTERNOON. EXPECT TEMPERATURES TO PLUMMET AS SOON AS
THE SUN GOES DOWN THIS EVENING. CURRENT TEMP IN DOWNTOWN SF IS 50
DEGREES. THE RECORD LOW FOR TOMORROW IS 42 DEGREES AND GOES BACK 118 YEARS! WE MAY BREAK THAT RECORD SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT. QUICK GLANCE OF DATA SUGGESTS ONLY TWO TIMES IN NOVEMBER THAT THE TEMPERATURE HAS FALLEN BELOW 40 DEGREES IN THE CITY. FREEZE AND FROST ADVISORIES ARE UP ACROSS THE DISTRICT TO HANDLE THIS COLD
SPELL. GOOD NEWS IS CONDITIONS ARE DRY ACROSS THE STATE FOR LAST
MINUTE TRAVEL PLANS TONIGHT INTO THURSDAY MORNING.
Continues………
The heavy snow showers that hit Chicago Saturday have left the area, but portions of northwest Indiana could see an additional eight inches of lake effect snow before the system completely passes Sunday afternoon.
Dec 5 2010
The snowstorm dropped more than five inches on the Chicago area Saturday and canceled more than 325 flights.
Bitter cold temperatures are expected to replace the snow this week.
A winter storm advisory remains in effect until 6 a.m. Sunday for Lake County, Ind., according to the National Weather Service’s website. The advisory means periods of snow will cause travel difficulties and motorists should prepare for snow-covered roads and limited visibilities.
Lake effect snow along the Lake Michigan shore is expected to shift from the Illinois shore into Indiana, the weather service said. As much as five additional inches of snow is possible, but amounts may vary greatly over short distances.
Further east, a more serious lake effect snow warning will remain in effect until 9 a.m. for Porter County, Ind., the weather service said. As much as eight additional inches of snow are possible in this area, which includes Valparaiso, Ind.
Lake-effect snow showers typically align in bands that can produce several inches of snow per hour for several hours, the weather service said. Visibility can drop to zero in minutes and travel is strongly discouraged.
In Chicago, the heaviest snow has moved out of the area, but flurries remain possible until 9 a.m. Sunny skies are expected in the afternoon, but temperatures will only reach about 23 degrees.
The weather service reported more than five inches of snow fell at O’Hare Airport Saturday — breaking the old record for Dec. 4 snow set in 1964.
More than 325 flights were canceled at O’Hare Airport and “a few delays” were reported at Midway Airport, according to the city’s Department of Aviation.
Bitter cold temperatures are expected to move into the area the rest of the week, the weather service said. Highs are only expected to be in the low-20s early this week, and single digit lows are possible.
© Copyright 2009 Sun-Times Media, LLC
Storm socks Midwest, cancels flights, closes roads
Dec 13 2010 – Associated Press
CHICAGO – A powerful winter storm roared across the upper Midwest on Sunday with high winds and mounds of snow closing roads in several states and canceling more than 1,400 flights in Chicago.
At least one weather-related death was reported Sunday as the storm system that dumped nearly 2 feet of snow in parts of Minnesota and caused the Metrodome’s inflatable, Teflon roof to collapse moved east. The Minnesota Vikings-New York Giants game was pushed to Monday night at Detroit’s Ford Field.
A blizzard warning was in effect Sunday for parts of eastern Iowa, southeastern Wisconsin, northwestern Illinois, and northern Michigan, according to the National Weather Service. Surrounding areas, including Chicago, were under winter storm warnings. “It’s going to be blustery,” said Ben Deubelbeiss, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville, Ill.
The winter weather, with blowing snow that severely limited visibility, wreaked havoc on air and road travel. In the Chicago area, wind gusts of up to 50 mph, temperatures in the teens, wind chills well below zero were expected along with up to 8 inches of snow.
More than 1,200 flights were canceled at O’Hare International Airport and more than 250 were canceled at Midway International Airport, Chicago Department of Aviation spokeswoman Karen Pride said. Both airports expected more cancellations and reported significant delays.
Major highways in several states were closed due to poor driving conditions and accidents.
US east coast in chaos following rare October snowstorm
A rare October snowstorm that also cut power to more than 2 million homes and killed at least three people.
The heaviest snow was recorded in Western Massachusetts, where 27.8 inches was measured in Plainfield, according to the National Weather Service. Just 45 minutes northwest of New York City, in West Milford, New Jersey, 19 inches of snow fell.
“A historic October storm is still crushing New England with heavy snow and howling winds,” meteorologist Meghan Evans said on Accuweather.com on Sunday.
[…]
Snow fell on Saturday, some at record amounts, across most of Pennsylvania well into Massachusetts after blanketing parts of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland.
The unseasonably early storm broke a snow record that had stood since 1969 for New York’s Central Park, which received 2.9 inches of snow, the National Weather Service said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/8858344/US-east-coast-in-chaos-following-rare-October-snowstorm.html
Record snowfall for “Climate Justice Day” in New York
Posted on October 30, 2011 by Anthony Watts
It just doesn’t get any better than this. The Occupy Wall Street Mob had a “Climate Justice Day” scheduled for today. I don’t think they figured on a “Nightmare on Wall Street” irony like this.
>>>>>>>>>>
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/30/record-snowfall-for-climate-action-day-in-new-york/
Southern California’s summer to end with a chill: It was the coldest in decades
Climate Scene: Canada
Sorry Canada – you’ve been annexed by USA!
Edmonton: Only Siberia was colder
Edmonton was the chilliest place in North America Sunday, says Environment Canada meteorologist. December 15, 2009
Edmonton Cold – Google Search
-46 degrees Celcius!
Vancouver braced to break a cold record Tuesday
Postmedia News November 22, 2010
VANCOUVER — Vancouver has a chance to break a 25-year-old cold weather record on Tuesday by a chilly four degrees.
Environment Canada forecaster Gary Dickinson predicts a daytime high of -6° C on Tuesday, which would smash the record -1.9° C high of Nov. 23, 1985, by more than four degrees.
“There is an Arctic ridge of high pressure over the entire province. Temperatures are chilly and below normal,” he said Monday.
Dickinson said conditions are expected to remain cool until warmer temperatures arrive on Thursday night, bringing rain.
Vancouver is expected to reach a high of -2° C on Monday, which is unseasonably cold, but a lot more agreeable than other places in the country.
It was a frigid -26° C in Fort Nelson on Monday; in Edmonton, site of Sunday’s Grey Cup game, it was -25° C.
© Copyright (c) The Province
Canada cuts environment spending
Stephen Harper’s administration is cutting budgets for climate, conservation and ozone monitoring projects
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/09/canada-cuts-environment-spending
Environment Canada is roughly analogous to a combination of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Environment Canada had a 1.07- billion-dollar budget in 2010, which has now been cut 20 percent to 854 million dollars for 2011-12. The EPA and NOAA budgets for 2010 were 10.3 billion and 5.5 billion dollars, respectively.
Some 776 Environment Canada employees have been told their jobs may be terminated. That’s 11 percent of the current staff in a government department that has been a favourite target for budget and staff cuts for the past decade, to the point where it was barely functional, said Duck.
Computer-modeled tropical fish to boom in Canada, while actual tropical fish freeze to death in Florida
Climate change could cause drastic drop in fish catches: UBC – News1130 [linked]
2012: Florida Fish Farms Struggle With Recent Cold Snap [linked]
http://tomnelson.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/aaas-update-computer-modeled-tropical.html
3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate
For discussion see “Energy and fuel”
Google news here re tax dodges and Democrat – Obama link.
This obviously should read: Google IN the news (climate related) and the GOOGLE – Democrat – Obama link . Sorry for disseminating confusion.
California could feel Spain’s pain
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
This article from the Orange County Register is by Dr. Gabriel Calzada, professor of applied environmental economics in Spain and lead author of a 2009 study detailing the economic costs of Spain’s experiment with the green economy.
The Unseen Carbon Agenda: EPA wants to remove 7% of U.S. power generation
October 26, 2010 WSJ.COM REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Anyone who cares about the U.S. economy is breathing easier now that cap and tax appears to be on the political garbage barge, but don’t be so sure. The White House is still pursuing its carbon agenda through regulation, albeit with almost no public attention, and a new study shows the damage that is already being done.
Yesterday the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a highly regarded federal energy advisory body, released an exhaustive “special assessment” of this covert program. NERC estimates that the Environmental Protection Agency’s pending electric utility regulations will subtract between 46 and 76 gigawatts of generating capacity from the U.S. grid by 2015. To put those numbers in perspective, the worst-case scenario would amount to a reduction of about 7.2% of national power generation, and almost all of it will hit coal-fired plants, the workhorse that supplies a little over half of U.S. electricity.
Quantifying the US Agricultural Productivity Response to Solar Cycle 24
David Archibald 30th December, 2008
Assuming that two thirds of the productivity increase in mid-western states from 1990 to 2004 was climatically driven, then the productivity decline in this region due to Solar Cycle 24 is expected to be of the order of 30%. The total US agricultural productivity decrease would be less than that at possibly 20%, equating to the export share of US agricultural production.
See – “Economics” Global Cooling – Economic Impacts
Geoengineering sparks international ban, first-ever congressional report
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 30, 2010
A senior House Democrat from Tennessee issued the first congressional report on geoengineering Friday, just as delegates from 193 nations approved a ban on such research under a global biodiversity treaty.
The debate over whether humans should explore ways to manipulate the climate has taken on increased urgency over the past year, as efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming have encountered political roadblocks in the United States and elsewhere.
The measure adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity, which recently concluded in Nagoya, Japan, states “that no climate-related geo-engineering activities that may affect biodiversity take place, until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities and appropriate consideration of the associated risks for the environment and biodiversity and associated social, economic and cultural impacts, with the exception of small-scale scientific research studies” under controlled circumstances.
EPA CO2 regulation lawsuits – Google Search
US Senate defeats move to stop EPA CO2 regulation – Google Search
Senate defeats move to stop EPA CO2 regulation
By Timothy Gardner and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON | Thu Jun 10, 2010 7:42pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Thursday killed legislation that would have stripped the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from large factories, electric power companies and automobiles.
The defeat of the Republican-inspired measure knocked down the most serious legislative challenge the EPA faced on regulating planet-warming gases, although it may have to contend with lawsuits from companies and industry groups.
In a procedural move, the Senate voted 53-47 to block the bill offered by Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski.
States Ask Court To Allow EPA To Enforce Greenhouse Gas Rules
Dow Jones Newswires | 02 November 2010
Good News! If GOP retakes control of Congress, plans attacks on EPA, climate scientists
USA Today | 02 November 2010
Obama warns not to ‘ignore’ climate science, but admits cap-and-trade won’t move
By Ben Geman – 11/03/10 02:22 PM ET
President Obama said Wednesday that policymakers must not “ignore” global warming science, but he declined to provide a full-throated endorsement of upcoming Environmental Protection Agency greenhouse-gas rules.
Obama, speaking at a White House press conference the day after huge GOP electoral gains, called for bipartisan cooperation on energy policy. He said he’s open to several ideas on climate instead of cap-and-trade legislation that he acknowledged won’t move in coming years.
The climate issue remains front-and-center because EPA is moving ahead to limit emissions under its existing powers.
“With respect to the EPA, the smartest thing for us to do is to see if we can get Democrats and Republicans in a room who are serious about energy independence, and are serious about keeping our air clean and our water clean and dealing with the issue of greenhouse gases, and seeing are there ways that we can make progress in the short-term and invest in technologies in the long-term that start giving us the tools to reduce greenhouse gases and solve this problem,” Obama said when asked about EPA regulation of heat-trapping gases.
But Obama also clearly affirmed EPA’s right to act, citing the landmark 2007 Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for the agency to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Cap-and-trade legislation that would have largely supplanted the upcoming EPA rules collapsed in Congress this year.
“The EPA is under a court order that says greenhouse gases are a pollutant that falls under their jurisdiction. One of the things that is very important for me is not to have us ignore the science, but rather to find ways that we can solve these problems that don’t hurt the economy, that encourage the development of clean energy in this country, that in fact may give us opportunities to create entire new industries and create jobs and that put us in a competitive posture around the world,” Obama said.
continues…
EPA moving unilaterally to limit greenhouse gases
(AP) – 25 Dec 2010
WASHINGTON (AP) — Stymied in Congress, the Obama administration is moving unilaterally to clamp down on greenhouse emissions, announcing plans for new power plants and oil refinery emission standards over the next year.
In an announcement posted on the agency’s website late Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson said the aim was to better cope with pollution contributing to climate change.
“We are following through on our commitment to proceed in a measured and careful way to reduce GHG pollution that threatens the health and welfare of Americans,” Jackson said in a statement. She said emissions from power plants and oil refineries constitute about 40 percent of the greenhouse gas pollution in this country.
Continues……..
EPA’s Move On CO2 Reaps 24 Lawsuits
August 9, 2010, CHEMICAL AND ENGINEERING NEWS (C&EN)
Climate Change: Plaintiffs challenge agency’s plan, based on ‘endangerment’ decision
Some 24 states, environmental groups, trade associations, and conservative organizations sued the Environmental Protection Agency this week, challenging its plan to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
The lawsuits would block or modify EPA’s attempt to reduce emissions from large industrial greenhouse gas sources. The agency’s regulation is based on its “endangerment” finding that greenhouse gases, including CO2, endanger public health and should therefore be regulated. Suits came from those on both sides of the issue: groups that back EPA’s approach but want to make it broader, and industry groups and states that oppose EPA’s use of the Clean Air Act to cut CO2 emissions.
In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that EPA could regulate CO2 as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. As a result, EPA said last December that it would do so and began the regulatory process for controlling CO2 and five other greenhouse gases emitted by vehicles, electric utilities, chemical companies, and other sources (C&EN, Dec. 14, 2009, page 7).
Since then, EPA has moved ahead with final regulations for motor vehicles and is just now developing regulations for industrial sources. The deadline for filing litigation to block the agency was Aug. 2.
The agency, however, remains adamant in its push to move ahead. When recently challenged by petitions from 10 states, trade associations, and conservative organizations that opposed EPA on scientific grounds, agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson denied the petitions, saying, “The endangerment finding is based on years of science from the U.S. and around the world.” She chided the petitioners, urging them to join “the vast majority of the American people who want to see more green jobs, more clean energy innovation.”
The importance of EPA’s proposed regulation grows as Congress appears unable to muster support for legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Just last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) withdrew a weak energy bill from Senate consideration. The bill included a few energy provisions, but it primarily proposed to remove a cap on offshore oil spill liability, which Republicans and a smattering of Democrats opposed. Earlier, Reid also dropped efforts to introduce a cap-and-trade bill, saying it lacked sufficient support (C&EN, Aug. 2, page 12).
Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2010 American Chemical Society
“When recently challenged by petitions from 10 states, trade associations, and conservative organizations that opposed EPA on scientific grounds, agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson denied the petitions, saying, “The endangerment finding is based on years of science from the U.S. and around the world.” She chided the petitioners, urging them to join “the vast majority of the American people who want to see more green jobs, more clean energy innovation.””
This would include Dr Roy Clark with his submission to the EPA endangerment finding and Steve McIntyre with his Climate Audit Submission to EPA
Dr Clark’s submission has since morphed into a formal paper – see “Look Away Warmists: 2 New Papers to Ignore”
Steven Milloy: Hook ‘em Horns: Texas sues EPA anew on climate
December 22nd 2010
The state of Texas has filed a new lawsuit against the EPA and the climate rules slate to take effect on Jan. 2.
Following the rejection of a request for a stay of the EPA rules by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Texas has filed its new effort to stay the rules in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
In petitioning the court to review the EPA’s action, Texas claims:
The GHG SIP Call is contrary to both the Clean Air Act and the Constitution. Recognizing the proper role of the States, the Clean Air Act declares pollution prevention to be “the primary responsibility of States and local governments,” and not the federal government. 42 U.S.C. § 7401(a)(3). EPA rejects that approach and seeks to deprive Texas of its right to manage its air resources. It does so by unlawfully replacing a properly-approved Texas SIP, despite Texas’ strong track record of reducing pollution and improving air quality in the State. The United States Constitution also denies the federal government the authority to commandeer the States to carry out its ends, but here EPA attempts just that by threatening Texas with severe economic harm unless the State adopts, on an unrealistic timeline, EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations, which are themselves unlawful.
Continues…………
——————————————————————————————————————–
This is really about States sovereignty vs rampant federal dictatorship.
See State Sovereignty Movement – 32 & Counting!
US EPA to curb emissions pending court challenges
December 11, 2010 – 11:49AM – smh
The US Environmental Protection Agency can enforce rules over emissions related to climate change while a lawsuit opposing them is pending, a federal appeals court said.
Industry groups and coal mining companies, including Massey Energy Co., last year asked for a review of the agency’s rules on greenhouse gasses and carbon emissions. The EPA rules challenged were published on the Federal Register in December 2009, according to the lawsuit.
The US Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington today denied a request by the challengers to put enforcement of the climate change rules on hold while the lawsuit is pending.
“Petitioners have not satisfied the stringent standards required for a stay pending court review,” the appeals panel said. “Petitioners have not shown that the harms they allege are ‘certain’ rather than speculative.”
The ruling may put a stop to some construction projects scheduled to begin in 2011, said Scott Segal of Bracewell Giuliani, a law and lobbying firm that represent utilities, refiners, cement companies and manufacturers.
“In light of the substantial disagreement over whether federal, state and local regulators can be ready in time to impose preconstruction permit requirements by early January, the court may have ensured an effective construction moratorium for industrial and power projects,” Segal said in an e-mailed statement.
“This is a victory for every American who wants better gas mileage and cleaner cars and factories,” David Doniger, policy director for the Climate Center at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an e-mailed statement. “It means cleaner air, a stronger economy and a healthier future for us all.”
The case is Coalition for Responsible Regulation Inc. v. US Environmental Protection Agency, 09-1322, US District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).
Bloomberg News
“the court may have ensured an effective construction moratorium for industrial and power projects”
Court blocks move by oil industry to delay EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions
Saturday, December 11, 2010; 8:10 PM – Washington Post
A U.S. appellate court Friday turned down a request from utilities, oil refiners and the state of Texas to delay the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Senators vow to strip Obama climate power
Jan 31 06:49 PM US/Eastern – Breitbart
Conservative senators vowed Monday to strip President Barack Obama of his power to regulate greenhouse gases, in a move that would cripple US efforts on climate change if successful.
Eleven Republican senators introduced a bill that would stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases, which scientists blame for global warming, without explicit approval by Congress.
Under Obama, the federal agency has steadily increased standards on gas emissions. The Republicans accused Obama of circumventing Congress, where a so-called “cap-and-trade” bill to mandate emission curbs died last year.
Obama admin. threatens climate veto
February 2, 2011 12:40 PM EST – Politico
The Obama administration Wednesday repeated its threat to veto legislation that would curb its ability to regulate greenhouse gases.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said that the White House continues to oppose any efforts from Capitol Hill to hamstring her agency on climate change.
“What has been said from the White House is that the president’s advisors would advise him to veto any legislation that passed that would take away EPA’s greenhouse gas authority,” Jackson told reporters on Capitol Hill. “Nothing has changed.”
Continues……..
A setback?
Climate Science Gets a Hug in U.S. Court Decision
A U.S. federal appeals court has delivered a decisive defeat to states and industry groups that had challenged the scientific and legal underpinnings of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) decision to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants under the federal Clean Air Act.
>>>>>>>>
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/06/climate-science-gets-a-hug-in-us.html?ref=hp
Reaction to the decision has split along predictable lines. The Obama Administration, environmentalists and many Democrats in Congress celebrated, with Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) calling the ruling a “resounding victory for science.” In contrast, many industry groups and Republican political figures have vowed to reverse the decision, either in Congress or the courts. “The debate to address climate change should take place in the U.S. Congress and … not impose additional burdens on businesses,” Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said in a statement.
Reuters report provides better coverage, from WUWT:-
Court upholds EPA’s greenhouse gas rules for autos – but lacks jurisdiction on stationary sources like power plants
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously ruled that the EPA’s finding that carbon dioxide is a public danger and setting limits for emissions from cars and light trucks were “neither arbitrary nor capricious.”
In the 82-page ruling, the court also found that the EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide regulations is “unambiguously correct.”
The court also said it lacked jurisdiction to review the timing and scope of greenhouse gas rules that affect stationary sources like new coal-burning power plants and other large industrial sources.
>>>>>>>>
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/26/court-upholds-epas-greenhouse-gas-rules-for-autos-but-lacks-jurisdiction-on-stationary-sourcesd-like-power-plants/
Puzzler: After the D.C. Circuit court explicitly said that they didn’t “re-weigh the scientific evidence before EPA and reach our own conclusion”, English major Chris Mooney suggests that they subjected “denier” claims to “serious and careful intellectual scrutiny”
http://tomnelson.blogspot.co.nz/2012/06/puzzler-after-dc-circuit-court.html
“In the end, petitioners are asking us to re-weigh the scientific evidence before EPA and reach our own conclusion. This is not our role,”
– panel of three judges in 82-page brief [linked below]
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/06/climate-science-gets-a-win-in-us-appeals-court.html
Court brief
http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/52AC9DC9471D374685257A290052ACF6/$file/09-1322-1380690.pdf
Page 55 pdf
Thus, we are faced with a statutory term—“air
pollutant”—that the Supreme Court has determined
unambiguously encompasses greenhouse gases. This phrase is
preceded by the expansive term “any,” a word the Court held
“underscores” Congress’s intent to include “all” air pollutants
“of whatever stripe.” See id. Absent some compelling reason to
think otherwise, “ ‘any’ . . . means any,” Ford v. Mabus, 629
F.3d 198, 206 (D.C. Cir. 2010), and Petitioners have given us no
reason to construe that word narrowly here. To the contrary:
given both the statute’s plain language and the Supreme Court’s
decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, we have little trouble
concluding that the phrase “any air pollutant” includes all
regulated air pollutants, including greenhouse gases.
From then on “any air pollutant” is the basis of considerable analysis.
Page 71 pdf:-
In short, although we agree with Industry Petitioners that
phrases like “any air pollutant” are, in certain contexts, capable
of a more limited meaning, they have failed to identify any
reasons that the phrase should be read narrowly here. Nor do we
know of one. We thus conclude that EPA’s 34-year-old
interpretation of the PSD permitting triggers is statutorily
compelled: a source must obtain a permit if it emits major
amounts of any regulated pollutant and is located in an area that
is in attainment or unclassifiable for any NAAQS pollutant.
Page 81 pdf
State Petitioners fail to cite any record evidence to suggest that they are adversely affected by global climate change. This is in stark contrast to the evidence put forward in Massachusetts v. EPA, where the Commonwealth submitted unchallenged affidavits and declarations showing that 1) rising sea tides due to global warming had “already begun to swallow Massachusetts’ coastal land,” and 2) “[t]he severity of that injury will only increase over the course of the next century.” Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. at 522–23. These specific, factual submissions were key to the standing analysis in Massachusetts v. EPA: the Court held that “petitioners’ submissions as they pertain to Massachusetts have satisfied the most demanding standards of the adversarial process.”
***************************************************************************************************************
My goodness,
“rising sea tides due to global warming had “already begun to swallow Massachusetts’ coastal land””
And
“[t]he severity of that injury will only increase over the course of the next century.”
Were “factual submissions”
I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this.
Posted this (and other matters) at the Stuff article ‘US court win for climate change moves’
http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7178837/A-court-win-for-climate-change
The “sound science” was never assessed by the three judges. From page 32 pdf of the court brief:-
In the end, Petitioners are asking us to re-weigh the
scientific evidence before EPA and reach our own conclusion.
This is not our role. As with other reviews of administrative
proceedings, we do not determine the convincing force of
evidence, nor the conclusion it should support, but only whether
the conclusion reached by EPA is supported by substantial
evidence when considered on the record as a whole. See, e.g.,
New York v. EPA, 413 F.3d 3, 30 (D.C. Cir. 2005). When EPA
evaluates scientific evidence in its bailiwick, we ask only that it
take the scientific record into account “in a rational manner.”
Am. Petroleum Inst. v. Costle, 665 F.2d 1176, 1187 (D.C. Cir.
1981). Industry Petitioners have not shown that EPA failed to do
so here.
http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/52AC9DC9471D374685257A290052ACF6/$file/09-1322-1380690.pdf
The “substantial evidence” and “scientific record” (not considered by the judges) is coming under increasing dispute outside the court however due to the lack of substance in the former and omissions in the latter.
‘US EPA’s key legal battles’ – SMH
U.S. President Barack Obama will rely on the federal Clean Air Act as he tries to make good on his latest vow to address the threat of global warming.
Obama will direct the Environmental Protection Agency to use the Act to finish a plan setting carbon pollution limits on new power plants by September 20 this year and draft a plan for existing power plants by June 2014.
Legal challenges are almost guaranteed for federal rules written under the Clean Air Act. Industry groups and coal-reliant states have already signaled that they will challenge power plant regulations if they feel the EPA produces a plan that has overly strict timetables or emissions limits that “violate the spirit of the Clean Air Act,” one industry representative said.
The following are major recent legal challenges to the Clean Air Act [details omitted]:
Massachusetts vs. EPA, 2007:
American electric power vs. Connecticut, 2011:
Coalition for responsible regulation vs. EPA, 2012:
Eme Homer City generation vs. EPA, 2012:
Las brisas energy center LLC vs. EPA, 2012:
Center for biological diversity vs. EPA, 2012:
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/factbox-us-epas-key-legal-battles-20130626-2ovwk.html#ixzz2XJAd4Ztg
The EPA’s Endangerment Finding Is Very Endangered
Patrick Michaels 9/30/2011
This week’s big global warming kerfluffle comes from the EPA’s Inspector General, who says the agency broke the law in preparation of its landmark 2009 “Endangerment Finding” from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Subsequent to making this finding, according to an infamous 2007 Supreme Court decision, the Agency must regulate emissions, presumably to the point which they no longer cause endangerment.
The IG believes that the EPA ran afoul of a rider to the 2001 appropriations bill that has been variously called the “Data Quality Act” or the “Information Quality Act”. Put simply, the accepted legal interpretation of this two-line piece of legislation is that a federal document that is a “highly influential science assessment” must undergo rigorous peer-review.
EPA based its endangerment finding on its own “Technical Support Document” (TSD), a weighty tome that drew heavily from the United Nations’ latest (2007) climate compendium, and also from a summary document from federal climatologists called “Global Climate Change Impacts on the United States”.
Like most groupthink projects, these two documents have numerous problems indicative of shoddy peer review……..
>>>>>>>>>>
http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmichaels/2011/09/30/the-epas-endangerment-finding-is-very-endangered/
Waxman-Markey Climate Change Bill – Google Search
Waxman-Markey Climate Change Bill Lawsuits – Google Search
The U.S. Political Tsunami That Destroyed The AGW Faux-Science & IPCC Agenda
The monumental changes that occurred on November 2, 2010 are simply stunning in the widespread repudiation of radical leftist/progressive/liberal/Democrat politics that has brought the U.S. to the brink of Greece-dom. For sure, the American populace is totally disgusted with the big government, big labor and big business crony capitalism agendas that have been pushed by the country’s elites over the past few years, to the severe disadvantage of the average American.
The vast majority of Americans don’t want to follow the paths of such banana republics as Greece, California, New York and Illinois. These are failed states, which remain committed to higher taxes, higher spending, higher welfare and higher levels of regulatory control that only benefits special interests, such as big labor, big bureaucracy and big business.
The American revulsion of the left’s extremism is best captured in this massive, unprecedented modern-day loss by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. That rejection of extremism was embellished with the Democrat loss of 6 U.S. Senate seats, which means Obama no longer has a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.
[US Congress Repub – Dem breakdown pre/post election]
THE HILL
ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
Sensenbrenner: Keep House climate panel as a check against EPA
11/08/10 03:21 PM ET
The top Republican on the House climate change panel that Democrats created in 2007 is urging GOP leaders not to kill the committee when they take control next year.
Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) says Republican leaders should recast the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming as a check against Environmental Protection Agency rules he calls economically harmful.
Republicans Eliminate Climate Change Panel
December 2, 2010 – CBS News
Republicans will eliminate a House panel designed to explore issues related to climate change, incoming House Speaker John Boehner announced on Wednesday, arguing that the committee is unnecessary and that its eradication would cut government waste.
“The global warming committee doesn’t need to be a separate committee,” Boehner told reporters. “We believe the Science Committee is more than capable of handling this issue, and in the process we’ll save several million dollars.”
The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which was created by Nancy Pelosi in 2007, was designed to provide members of Congress with a prominent forum for discussion on developing climate-change science and supply information about the global race for clean-energy technology. Over the course of its three-year existence, the panel held 75 hearings, according to Bloomberg News.
The scientific community largely sees global warming as a legitimate and growing problem brought about in part by human activity. Many Republican lawmakers question that scientific consensus.
Continues……..
Hundreds line up in the cold for help heating homes
December 2, 2010 – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As metro Atlanta’s temperatures grow colder, the demand for heat is, well, heating up.
A day after hundreds of people queued up outside a Marietta community center to apply for assistance with heat and power bills, hopeful applicants began lining up again around midnight, waiting in the sub-freezing temperatures for the doors to open Thursday morning.
This time, however, officials let those in line come into the Mansour Center on Roswell Street an hour early at 7:30 and get relief from temperatures that dropped to 27 degrees.
“We’re freezing,” said Lecher Eady, a Marietta mother who arrived at midnight seeking help with her bills. “Our hands are cold, our feet are cold.”
Eady, the mother of triplets in diapers, said she has been out of work since August.
“I’ve had three jobs this year, and I’ve been laid off from all three,” she said. “I’m grateful just to get any type of help they’ll give me.”
Eady said she is trying to start a nonprofit organization, “Babies Need Diapers,” that would provide diapers to low-income single mothers.
“We have assistance for food, we have assistance for clothing, but we don’t have assistance for diapers,” she said. “That’s my biggest struggle right now.”
Joining Eady near the front of the line that had grown to about 30 people by 7:30 was Isata Kamara, a single mom of a 3-year-old.
“My electric bill and my gas bill are going to get cut off because I don’t have the money right now,” said Kamara, who recently lost her job.
“I saw it on the news and decided to come up here because I really need the help,” she said.
Those news reports Wednesday night showed hundreds of people who lined up around the building throughout the day on Wednesday. Channel 2 Action News reported that ambulances were called for at least two people who had difficulty dealing with Wednesday’s cold temperatures.
In DeKalb County, Atlanta police were called to the Atlanta DeKalb Human Services Building on Warren Street Wednesday morning after “loud arguing” broke out among a large crowd gathered to apply for energy assistance, according to police dispatchers.
Lakesha Charles, who has been out of work for two years, was number 16 in the Marietta line Thursday, which, she said, is “better than number 100.”
The mother of six said she “heard it was ridiculous” on Wednesday, when only 30 people at a time were let into the assistance center.“Hopefully, we can get in and get help,” she said.
“I saw it on the news and decided to come up here because I really need the help,” Kamara said. “You’ve got to stand in line, because it’s not going to come to you.”
That heating assistance will come in handy next week, when a surge of cold Canadian air will send overnight lows in metro Atlanta plummeting to the low 20s, with afternoon highs warming only into the mid-40s.
Continues………
Cold Blast Strains Farmers
* DECEMBER 8, 2010 – WSJ
Early Frost Kills Crops in South, Drives Up Prices as Growers Try to Shield Produce
An unusually early blast of cold air is cloaking the southeast, forcing farmers to toil through the night to save their livestock and crops of strawberries, tender green beans and sweet corn.
In parts of Florida, hit Tuesday morning with a freeze not seen this early since 1937, some growers were already reporting severe frost burn and ruined plantings, reducing supply and driving up prices for winter vegetables amid the holiday season.
Florida growers endured a freeze and difficult spell of weather in January, “but now, the timing is more unfortunate because we are gearing up to put vegetables out for peoples’ holiday meals,” said Lisa Lochridge, spokeswoman for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association. The association was still determining total loss on Tuesday.
In Palm Beach County, the nation’s top producer of winter vegetables, the price of a bushel of green beans soared 62% Tuesday to between $24 and $26, compared to $14 to $16 over the weekend, said J.D. Poole, vice president of Pioneer Growers Cooperative in Belle Glade, Fla.
Frigid air from Canada pushed into the southeast Monday, bringing snow to mountains in Tennessee and West Virginia, cancelling schools in parts of North Carolina, and ushering in temperatures 15 to 20 degrees below normal in some places. The National Weather Service issued a freeze warning through Wednesday morning for most of Florida, the southeast corner of Alabama and southern Georgia.
While farming’s peak season is over in many regions of the country, it’s still in full swing throughout parts of the south—meaning farmers can get caught off guard by an early freeze. In Iron City, Ga., cattle farmer Yancy Trawick has erected a wall of hay in his field as a fort to protect his 75 newborn calves from the wind. “This is rough on them,” he said.
In Loxahatchee, Fla., workers at Hundley Farms were up all night into Tuesday, running warm water between crops of sweet corn and green beans to fend off frost. Starting at 3:40 a.m., six helicopters flew at varying levels back and forth over Hundley’s fields an in attempt to push the layer of warm air down on the crops, said Tom Perryman, crop supervisor.
Still, Tuesday morning revealed that about 30% of the crops were hurt by freeze, with delicate green beans the worse off, he said, adding, “And still have to get through tonight. I can’t remember a time when we had a freeze by Dec. 7,” he said.
Ms. Lochridge, of the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, said Florida’s growers of heartier citrus fruits have so far escaped any notable freeze damage, while some growers of strawberries, tomatoes, green beans, and sweet corn were reporting the tell-tale signs of frost burn.
In Belle Glade, fifth-generation farmer Stewart Stein said his sweet corn began “turning blackish green and slimy” right before his eyes Tuesday. As for his green beans, “the leaves will start drooping on the beans and wilting down,” he said.
He estimates he lost 150 acres of corn and 45 acres of green beans to frost. “It’ll take the wind out of your sails, that’s for sure,” he said
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Florida: Farmers count losses after third December freeze
“This much cold in December it’s unheard of.”
…
Workers spent the night monitoring the fields and watching to see how long the freezing temperatures would hold. Temperatures dipped to 34 degrees in West Palm Beach and 25 degrees in Fort Pierce overnight, shattering records of 38 degrees set in 1928 and 34 degrees set in 1977, respectively.
…
Ryan’s father, Rick Roth, said the cold weather the area has seen this December is “totally a one-in-one-hundred year event. People are saying this hasn’t happened since the 1930s.”
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2010/12/florida-farmers-count-losses-after.html
‘Hottest Year Ever’ Update: Record number of Manatees Died in 2010 from Cold Water
Monday, December 6, 2010
As reported on NBC Nightly News 12/6/10, a record number of manatees died in 2010 due to unusually cold water.
According to Katie Tripp, Ph.D., Director of Science and Conservation, SaveTheManatee.org:
“Through November 19th [2010], 685 manatees have been confirmed dead in the state of Florida, representing more than 13% of the species’ estimated minimum population. This far surpasses the record of 429 deaths set in 2009, and there is still one month left in the year. Although 2010 started with ideal conditions that allowed a record number of manatees to be counted during the annual aerial survey (5,076), the same cold weather that facilitated the count began causing unprecedented levels of mortality in the subsequent weeks. In total, nearly 400 manatees are believed to have died from this lingering event, shattering the previous record of 56 cold-related deaths. In addition, several dozen manatees suffering from cold stress were rescued around the state. Although cold-related deaths are considered a natural cause, the events of this winter highlight the vulnerability of our state’s manatee population, and reinforce the importance of safeguarding winter habitat and minimizing human-related threats to this species.”
Last Updated: Wednesday, December 15, 2010 4:48 PM
COCOA —
The cold weather isn’t just killing crops, it’s also taking its toll on marine life.
Florida Freeze: Dead fish turn up in Cocoa
Dead fish at the Marina at Cocoa Villiage are washing ashore in numbers too large to count.
“One of the local fisherman said that it’s the catfish. And the water’s just too cold for them. And they’re dying,” said Cocoa resident Lisa Michalski.
Michalski has only lived in Florida for three months, and said she wasn’t expecting such cold weather. She said she first spotted the dying fish on Tuesday, after a night of freezing temperatures.
See photos.
Florida Freeze Viewer Photo Gallery
Posted: December 8
Cold-stunned turtles wash ashore on N.C. beaches
Paralyzed by abnormally low temperatures.
30 turtles were reported in trouble.
On top of the more than 20 turtles already discovered along the coast.
Protected as a threatened species
Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Michigan buried by global warming
Henry Payne / The Michigan View.com
Last Updated: December 14. 2010 1:00AM
From The Detroit News:
Has there ever been a better illustration of the gulf between America’s political elites and Middle America?
This weekend, a delegation to the United Nation’s Climate Summit in the resort city of Cancun, Mexico that included Washington negotiators, Michigan faculty, and Ann Arbor students returned to declare that they had come to an agreement to transfer $100 billion — that’s BILLION — to Third World countries to combat catastrophic global warming. The announcement came as a brutal winter snowstorm buried the Midwest in record snowdrifts that collapsed the Minneapolis Metrodome, drove temperatures to record lows in the south, and killed five people in the Metro Detroit area
How many people has global warming killed?
Despite last year’s Climategate scandal that have gutted climate science credibility, the United States increased funding three-fold in 2010 to a staggering $1.7 billion-a-year to fight the phantom global warming scare at a time when the country’s federal and state budgets are hobbled by a loss of revenue from the Great Recession.
Is global warming a greater threat than state bankruptcy?
While the Cancun delegation studied the diversion of another $100 billion in tax dollars to the help Third World governments build windmills, local Michigan governments like Oakland County cut its snow and salt crews by a third to meet budget — crews that were sorely missing Monday morning as semi-trucks jackknifed on slick roads, clotting roadways and forcing backup for miles.
Is global warming a greater threat than road safety?
In Atlanta last week, hundreds of poor residents shivered in line for home-heating assistance as the mercury in southern Georgia plunged into the ’20s. Indeed, Cancun itself greeted its warming saviors with record low temperatures while climate delegates met amidst hotels full of resort vacationers honked off by 50-degree temperatures.
This is madness.
The University of Michigan sent 30 professors, students, and alumni to the Cancun Summit. “Rather than only learning in the classroom about the most complex and contentious environmental negotiations that we have ever faced, the students will get a first-hand look at how such an international treaty is worked out,” said Andrew Hoffman, a professor in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment. Freezing, overtaxed Michigan voters may wonder whether if this is the best use of their U-M subsidy dollars.
“Last year, the masses in Copenhagen were alive with the idealistic belief that a solution to climate change was at hand. This year, the masses in Cancun are alert to the nearest bar with a deal on margaritas,” sniffed one U-M student in Cancun about the vacationers around him. “Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against tanned bikini clad bodies or margaritas. At the same time, it does give one pause when the vast majority of people just outside the conference walls are oblivious to the debate which could have a drastic impact not only on their own lives but the lives of future generations.”
Maybe these students would have learned more helping “the masses” in a Detroit warming center where large numbers of homeless are expected this year in the midst of a down Detroit economy.
While The Detroit News reports that “extreme temperatures” this winter will see an overflow of families to Detroit warming centers, Gov. Jennifer Granholm is celebrating the forced purchase of wind power — to fight global warming — by DTE in order to meet state alternative energy mandates. The expensive mandates will suck more money from Michigan ratepayers. The governor applauded the deal as Lansing has experienced record snowfall and record low temperatures this decade.
It is hard to square the rhetoric of Cancun with the reality of Detroit’s streets. U-M might expose its students to climatologist Pat Michaels who explains that even Cancun’s goal of an 80 percent carbon reduction by 2050 would have minimal effect on global temperatures. Or that diverting $100 million from the economic engines like the U.S. to create green utopias will increase poverty.
Instead, students get green mythology.
“We hope to participate actively while in Cancun, as well as share our experiences with our community upon return,” said one Mexico-bound U-M student. More likely, she’ll be sharing experiences of slip-sliding across an iced-over campus in 10-degree temperatures.
Henry Payne is editor of The Michigan View.com
Rare eagle’s safety puts energy plans in limbo
5:30 AM Wednesday Dec 15, 2010 – NZH
Fears that wind turbines could kill protected golden eagles have halted progress on an important part of the US Government’s push to increase renewable energy on public lands, stalling plans for billions of dollars in wind farm developments.
The US Bureau of Land Management suspended issuing wind permits on public land indefinitely after wildlife officials invoked a decades-old law for protecting eagles.
The restriction has stymied efforts to “fast-track” approval for four of the seven most promising wind energy proposals, including all three in California.
Now, these and other projects appear unlikely to make the year-end deadline to potentially qualify for hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus funds.
If extensions aren’t granted in the lame-duck session of Congress, the future of many of these plans could be in doubt.
“Companies are waiting to know the criteria to get a permit,” said Larry LaPre, a wildlife biologist for BLM’s California desert district.
He said he expected it to be “at least a year or longer” before permitting resumes.
Golden eagles are the latest roadblock to establishing wind farms on federally owned land, already an expensive process plagued by years of bureaucratic delay.
The projects also have been untracked by other wildlife issues, a sluggish economy and objections by defence and aviation authorities that wind turbines interfere with the country’s aged radar system.
The delays are occurring despite a target set by Congress in 2005 that directed the Interior Department to approve about 5 million homes’ worth of renewable energy on public land by 2015. Since then, only two of the more than 250 proposed wind projects have been approved and neither has been built.
The four fast-track projects in jeopardy of losing stimulus funds because of eagle issues would alone generate about 416MW of clean energy, enough to power roughly a half million US homes during peak usage.
There are now 28 US wind farms operating on public lands.
The vast majority of public land regulated by the BLM is in western states, where all onshore wind farms approved or in planning stages will be located.
Continues…………
RIVERSIDE: UCR wins NASA grant to teach climate change
10:00 PM PST on Sunday, December 19, 2010 – The Press-Enterprise
Three professors at UC Riverside have landed a $350,000 NASA grant to teach nonscience-focused students in high school and college about climate change.
They will use data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to help students navigate through the debate over climate change and understand the science for themselves, said Mary Droser, chairwoman of UCR’s Department of Earth Sciences and the project’s principal investigator.
“They get pummeled by the media — people saying ‘There is no climate change,’ or ‘The end is coming.’ We need an informed public because climate change is coming, it’s a very scary thing, and these are future voters. They need to see through the media hyperbole,” Droser said.
[Snip]
The grant was among $7.7 million in Global Climate Change Education Awards to 17 colleges and nonprofit groups nationwide. Winning proposals used innovative approaches to using the NASA content in teaching, according to a NASA news release. The competitive awards ranged from $300,000 to $700,000.
The FCC’s Threat to Internet Freedom
* DECEMBER 19, 2010 – WSJ
Tomorrow morning the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will mark the winter solstice by taking an unprecedented step to expand government’s reach into the Internet by attempting to regulate its inner workings. In doing so, the agency will circumvent Congress and disregard a recent court ruling.
How did the FCC get here?……….
Napolitano Says DHS to Begin Battling Climate Change as Homeland Security Issue
Friday, December 17, 2010
(CNSNews.com) – At an all-day White House conference on “environmental justice,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that her department is creating a new task force to battle the effects of climate change on domestic security operations.
Speaking at the first White House Forum on Environmental Justice on Thursday, Napolitano discussed the initial findings of the department’s recently created “Climate Change and Adaptation Task Force.”
Continues……
California to implement carbon trading scheme
7:00AM GMT 17 Dec 2010 – UK Telegraph
California has approved the first system in the nation to give polluting companies such as utilities and refineries financial incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases.
The Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to pass the key piece of California’s 2006 climate law – called AB32 – with the hope that other states will follow the lead of the world’s eighth largest economy. State officials also are discussing plans to link the new system with similar ones under way or being planned in Canada, Europe and Asia.
The rules limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and allow power plants, factories and eventually refiners and others to trade permits to pollute in a program generally known as cap-and-trade.
California is trying to “fill the vacuum created by the failure of Congress to pass any kind of climate or energy legislation for many years now,” said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the state’s air quality board.
Continues……..
The Western Climate Initiative itself offers an opportunity for fraud on a massive scale. Its purpose was to decrease the cost of reducing emissions by letting each region play to its strengths: the Northwest has abundant hydropower while California has strong solar energy potential, so it makes sense to exchange the two.
Or so the theory goes.
In practice, British Columbia, through its government-owned utility BC Power, has been scamming California consumers. BC Power, hit with a fine for its role in California’s Enron-era electricity scandal, has been selling “green” hydropower to California for years.
Then, in an act of electron-laundering, has backfilled its electricity deficit with coal-fired power from Washington state and Alberta. This lets Californians feel good about their electricity while netting Canadians a healthy profit.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/557195/201012171838/Cap-And-Trade-Tosses-An-Anchor-To-Drowning-California-Economy.htm
Scientists Rail Against Senator Who Belittled Research
Dec. 23, 2010 – abcNEWS
A team of scientists who study pollution’s role in global warming are outraged at a GOP Senator who, they say, has maligned their work as wasteful and petty by describing it as a study of “cow burps.”
“This was not funded with earmarks and it was not a study about cow burps,” said John Aber, an environmental scientist and provost of the University of New Hampshire.
“It’s not wasteful,” he said. “It’s important.”
Sen. Tom Coburn, R- Okla., released on Monday his annual “Wastebook” report, a look at 100 projects that received federal funding which, he says, contributed to record deficits in the past year.
Among those projects was a $700,000 grant from the Department of Agriculture to a team of environmental scientists at the University of New Hampshire to study greenhouse gas emissions – the chemicals associated with global warming – in the dairy industry.
Coburn’s “Wastebook” quotes one of the project’s researchers telling a local New Hampshire paper that “cows emit most of their methane through belching, only a small fraction from flatulence.”
Continues………
———————————————————————————————————————
This research is a result of the GLOBAL RESEARCH ALLIANCE formed at COP15 that NZ is a partner to (and administrator).
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/climate/climate-science/atmosphere/#comment-31573
So it’s a burp tax – not a fart tax.
How can climate scientists spend so much money?
Climate change in the FY 2011 budget
$2.48 billion
NOAA, NSF, NASA, DOE, DOI, EPA, USDA
So that’s where all our free stuff comes from (but they could close down GISS – no loss).
Alan Caruba is more forthright:-
The Great ‘Climate Change’ Taxpayer Rip-Off of 2011
“Beyond that, if Congress was really intent on cutting back on spending, they could begin by defunding or shutting down the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and all the other federal grifters with their snouts rooting around in the climate change trough.”
http://climatechangedispatch.com/home/8490-the-great-climate-change-taxpayer-rip-off-of-2011
Green Jobs…at What Cost?
MacIver News Service | January 28, 2011
Despite millions in government grants and subsidies, the Manitowoc company President Barack Obama called a glimpse of the future lost $4.2 million last year and cannot promise shareholders it will be profitable in the foreseeable future.
http://maciverinstitute.com/2011/01/green-jobs-at-what-cost/
The State of Wisconsin has also given its share trying to help Orion to succeed. Since 2005, the state has given the company $350,000 in community development zone tax credits, $506,000 in economic development funds, and $420,000 from the Wisconsin Energy Independence Fund. Plus the company got another $260,000 in stimulus funds for a State Energy project.
In addition to direct aid, public policy has also helped the struggling company. Wisconsin law requires that 10 percent of all electricity sold in the state come from renewable sources by 2015. Orion knows that without government intervention like that, there would be little prospect for the green economy.
Plants trip due to cold weather, leads to shortage of power
Wed, Feb 2, 2011 – NBCDFW
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has ordered utility companies to begin rotating outages to compensate for a power generation shortage.
According to ERCOT, the outages are necessary because there is a shortage of power after some plants were knocked offline due to extreme weather.
“ERCOT is urging all consumers who can reduce their energy consumption to do so at this time. Severe weather has led to the loss of more than 50 generation units more than 7,000 MW, and additional units are continuing to trip offline due to the extreme cold temperatures,” ERCOT said in a news release isued just after noon Wednesday. “Conservation is very critical at this time to reduce the load on the system.”
Continues…………
We Spent Billions on Wind Power… and All I Got Was a Rolling Blackout
Posted on February 2, 2011 – By Mike Smith, Meteorological Musings
“When the wind is light, the turbine blades do not turn. And, the coldest nights usually occur with snow cover and light winds. The 9pm weather map for the region is below. The red number at upper right is the current temperature and they are well below zero deep into New Mexico and parts of Kansas and Colorado, so regional power use is high. Springfield, CO was already -15°F. Temperatures are in the single digits and teens over most Texas with very light winds in the areas where the turbines are located.”
“If Texas had made the same dollar investment in new coal and/or nuclear power plants they would probably be snug and warm tonight. Do we we really want to sacrifice our families’ safety and security along with business productivity during extreme cold for the sake of political correctness?”
In reply to “The Importance of Science in Addressing Climate Change”
Rebuttal to the Climate Science Rapid Response Team – February 8, 2011
—————————————————————————————————————————–
February 8, 2011
To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate:
In reply to “The Importance of Science in Addressing Climate Change”
On 28 January 2011, eighteen scientists sent a letter to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate urging them to “take a fresh look at climate change.” Their intent, apparently, was to disparage the views of scientists who disagree with their contention that continued business-as-usual increases in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions produced from the burning of coal, gas, and oil will lead to a host of cataclysmic climate-related problems.
We, the undersigned, totally disagree with them and would like to take this opportunity to briefly state our side of the story.
The eighteen climate alarmists (as we refer to them, not derogatorily, but simply because they view themselves as “sounding the alarm” about so many things climatic) state that the people of the world “need to prepare for massive flooding from the extreme storms of the sort being experienced with increasing frequency,” as well as the “direct health impacts from heat waves” and “climate-sensitive infectious diseases,” among a number of other devastating phenomena. And they say that “no research results have produced any evidence that challenges the overall scientific understanding of what is happening to our planet’s climate,” which is understood to mean their view of what is happening to Earth’s climate.
To these statements, however, we take great exception. It is the eighteen climate alarmists who appear to be unaware of “what is happening to our planet’s climate,” as well as the vast amount of research that has produced that knowledge.
Continues…………
—————————————————————————————————————————-
36 signatories (working or retired climate scientists, physicists etc)
32 endorsements (working or retired climate scientists, physicists, geologists, meteorologists etc)
Two impressive lists.
Congress to NASA: Study Space! (Not Climate. That’s Not Space.)
February 18, 2011 – by Art Horn
Members of Congress are asking something novel of NASA: to actually study space, not global warming.
[Snip]
The amount of money being spent to study global warming, as a percentage of NASA’s budget, is startling — especially when one considers this is not part of NASA’s original mission. In budget year 2010, NASA spent 7.5% of its funding — over $1B — to study global warming. On top of that — the vast majority of federal stimulus money given to NASA in 2010 was spent on studying global warming.
As a whole, the U.S. federal government has spent $8.7 billion dollars on global warming studies — just in the past year! Many of the sixteen separate agencies doing this work were performing redundant research. In a time of federal spending cuts that are sure to come, much of this redundancy certainly can and must be eliminated, saving taxpayers billions. Certainly NASA should be one of the first to see funding drastically cut, or eliminated entirely, in this area.
The principal arm of global warming research for NASA is the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). That’s “Space” Studies, not climate.
Continues……
NYT reporting US House cuts REDD+, adaptation, clean tech & IPCC funding
NYT is reporting the US House of Representatives has cut the administration’s FY 2011 request for climate change programs run by the world bank to $0. These cuts include:
$95m for REDD
$400 m for clean tech
$90 for adaptation.
The White House request for supporting the IPCC was also cut from $2.3 million to $0.
http://tropicalforestgroup.blogspot.com/2011/03/nyt-reporting-us-house-cuts-redd.html
Schwarzenegger: It’s Time to Terminate Skepticism on Climate Change
The former governor and action-firm superstar compared the current debate over climate change to the state of bodybuilding when he entered that sport in the late 1960s. A pervasive fear of weightlifting’s effects led celebrities to disavow their own exercise routines, and produced euphemisms when discussing the activity. However, scientific evidence eventually came to support the health benefits of weightlifting, and today talk about abs and pecs is common. Confident in having brought weightlifting to the mainstream, Schwarzenegger told the audience he hopes to do the same for climate science.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20110301/sc_livescience/schwarzeneggeritstimetoterminateskepticismonclimatechange
I am lost for words, truly I am
House Panel Votes to Strip E.P.A. of Power to Regulate Greenhouse Gases
Published: March 10, 2011
WASHINGTON — A House subcommittee voted on Thursday to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its power to regulate greenhouse gases, chipping away at a central pillar of the Obama administration’s evolving climate and energy strategy.
The sharply partisan vote was preordained by the Republican takeover of the House. Republicans and their industry allies accuse the administration of levying taxes on traditional energy sources through costly environmental regulations, threatening the economic recovery and driving jobs overseas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/science/earth/11climate.html?_r=3&ref=todayspaper
Polluter Arguments Rebuffed In ‘Scopes Trial’ On Climate Science
In 2009, the US Chamber of Commerce called for the “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” to question the scientific fact of man-made climate change.
Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia began consideration of a landmark case that consolidates a series of challenges to Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 finding that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health and welfare and its related rule-makings. The cases, brought by energy companies, industry front groups, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), and others, seek to stop the EPA from regulating greenhouse pollution. Their legal argument is that climate science is a hoax.
But the three-judge panel’s questions and comments during the first day of oral arguments showed enormous skepticism of the industry arguments. Acknowledging that by law, the panel must show deference to the EPA’s finding, the chief judge told one of the challenger’s lawyers: “You seem to be asking us to determine that the EPA is incorrect, but that is not the standard, ” and even that “would not be enough to win the case for you.” Other arguments were similarly pooh-poohed by the panel.
[…]
The challengers involved with the cases include:
Industry Front Groups and Trade Associations
–Coalition for Responsible Regulation, Inc.
–Industrial Minerals Association – North America
–National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
–National Mining Association
–SIP/FIP Advocacy Group
–Utility Air Regulatory Group
Coal and Energy Companies
–Alpha Natural Resources, Inc.
–Peabody Energy Company
–Great Northern Project Development, L.P.
–Rosebud Mining Company
Republican-led State Governments
–State of Texas
–State of Wyoming
Perhaps realizing that the law is not on their side, some of these industry groups have simultaneously taken a legislative approach to fighting EPA regulations, pushing for enactment of HR 910, the “Energy Tax Prevention Act.” The bill, sponsored by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), would take away the EPA’s regulatory power over greenhouse gases. The Republican House endorsed the proposal last April, mostly along party lines, but the measure has stalled in the Democratic Senate. The Industrial Minerals Association, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Mining Association, Peabody Energy Company all reported lobbying on the bill in 2011 — part of their combined $9.8 million lobbying efforts on this and other subjects.
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/02/29/434698/appeals-court-panel-rebuffs-polluters-epa-greenhouse-rules/
Caution: Think Progress article.
ANOTHER court case.
strong>EPA has lost it’s way on warming
Legal challenges by states and industry groups over the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could and should be decided in the challengers’ favor. Whether that will happen in this highly politicized, semi-scientific matter of “dangerous manmade global warming and climate change” remains to be seen. Regardless of what the DC Court of Appeals decides, the case will almost assuredly return to the Supreme Court, where the outcome is equally uncertain.
http://www.cfact.org/a/2095/EPA-has-lost-its-way-on-warming?utm_source=CFACT+Updates&utm_campaign=bfa8466862-National_Journal_EPA_wrong_on_warming2_28_2012&utm_medium=email
Report calls the scientific integrity of EPA’s decision-making process into question and undermines the credibility of the endangerment finding.
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8409&linkbox=true&position=5
Washington, D.C.—Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, today announced that a new government report from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reveals that the scientific assessment underpinning the Obama EPA’s endangerment finding for greenhouse gasses was inadequate and in violation of the Agency’s own peer review procedures.
SCIENTIST’S MESSAGE TO SUPREME COURT: EPA’S ENDANGERMENT FINDING INVALID
May 24, 2013
The Supreme Court, in Mass v. EPA, stated that the EPA must treat CO2 and other Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), as “pollutants” and then carryout an analysis to determine whether the increasing concentrations in atmospheric CO2 may reasonably be anticipated to endanger human health and welfare. The Court did not mandate regulation; rather it mandated that EPA go through an Endangerment Finding process.
EPA did so and on December 15, 2009 issued its ruling that CO2 and other GHGs must be regulated. This EPA finding and associated rulings were immediately challenged in the DC Circuit Court. The DC Circuit ruled in favor of EPA, but given the two strong dissents from the December 20, 2012 decision denying rehearing en banc, the matter is likely going to the Supreme Court.
On Thursday, May 23, 2013, 11 scientists submitted an Amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of the Southeastern Legal Foundation ( SLF) et al’s Petition for a writ of certiorari. (see PDF) )
SLF’s petition is the only petition to the Supreme Court that includes a purely science argument developed to show that EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding (EF) should be Vacated. Other Petitioners argue that such a decision is in order but make purely legal or process arguments.
Both the aforementioned Amicus brief and the SLF brief argue that each of the Three Lines of Evidence EPA uses to arrive at its 90-99 % certainty regarding its EF are very highly questionable. More specifically, the science portion of the Amicus Brief concludes with the following statement:
“Amici believe that no scientists have devised an empirically validated theory proving that higher atmospheric CO2 levels will lead to higher GAST. Moreover, if the causal link between higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations and higher GAST is broken by invalidating each of EPA’s three lines of evidence, then EPA’s assertions that higher CO2 concentrations also cause sea-level increases and more frequent and severe storms, floods, and droughts are also disproved. Such causality assertions require a validated theory that higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations cause increases in GAST. Lacking such a validated theory, EPA’s conclusions cannot stand. In science, credible empirical data always trumps proposed theories, even if those theories are claimed to (or actually do) represent the current consensus.”
>>>>>>>>
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate
Related: ‘The worst consequences of the global warming scare’
Guest essay by David Archibald
[…] “During a recent briefing in Washington, D.C., IEA analyst Laszlo Varro was pessimistic about CTL. “Essentially, energy policy needs to replicate a war blockade,” he said. “The only country that has meaningful investments in coal to liquids is China.”
Varro added, “It’s a big carbon dioxide factory.”
With the EPA in the United States hell bent on closing down existing coal-fired power stations using carbon dioxide emissions as the excuse, getting funding for a new coal-burning facility of any sort is going to be a difficult sell. The consequence of that is that the United States is denying itself its largest potential source of liquid transport fuels commercially viable with current oil prices and technology […]
Now let’s go back to that quote from the International Energy Agency analyst: ”energy policy needs to replicate a war blockade.” and “the only country that has meaningful investments in coal to liquids is China.” It seems that one of the reasons that China is investing in coal-to-liquids is that it expects to be subject to a war blockade in a war that it will start itself. On the other side of the Pacific, the United States, which will do the heavy lifting in any such war started by China, is handicapped by denying itself a potential supply of liquid transport fuels and the optimum allocation of its resource endowment. That, dear readers, is the worst consequence of the witchcraft and voodoo that is the current state of official climate science.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/24/the-worst-consequences-of-the-global-warming-scare/#more-86866
Nice site here, Ric Werme’s RGGI Watch documents events and CO2 allowance sales prices.
Overview and History
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative was created several years ago as the first United States Cap and Trade program covering ten states in the northeast. Its goal was to force fossil fuel burning electric power plants to use more efficient and less carbon intensive power production by forcing producers to buy “allowances” for each ton of CO₂ they emit. Each allowance covers a three year time period.
http://wermenh.com/rggiwatch/
Last price from their March 2011 auction for 2012-2014, US$1.89
CO2 emissions seem very reasonable in the US northeast. I wonder if the NZ ETS review takes this price into consideration.
The Environmental Protection Agency Comes-a-Copper
Patrick Michaels
Climate of Fear
May. 12 2011 – 12:20 pm
Have you checked out the price of copper lately? For consumers, the good news is that it fell about 10% in the last month. The bad news is that it is still pretty close to its all-time record high of $4.50 per pound set in February. For comparative purposes, copper hovered slightly below a dollar a pound for years after the turn of the century.
Punditry has it that the rise is because of the enormous increase in consumption by China, and it is a fact that the expansion of its economy and its copper consumption are highly correlated. Without dramatic increases in supply, prices will stay high, subject to China’s booms and busts.
The decline of the dollar also hurts. Put simply, on the world market, it takes more cheap dollars to buy a pound of copper than when it was more valued. That’s probably not going to change very much, either, as long as we continue to mortgage the future.
So why should you care about copper? Because the Environmental Protection Agency is going to make you care.
That hybrid car that you smugly drive contains about 100 pounds of the stuff, largely in the electrical cables and the electric motor. That’s over $400 of raw material price that is a fixed cost at current scarcity. A conventional car has only half as much.
The more electric a vehicle is, the more copper it contains (with the exception of completely impractical fuel cell cars). Part of the reason for the $41,000 sticker price of the Chevy Volt is that it contains about three times as much copper as its gas-only counterpart, the Cruze. This cost is pretty insensitive to the margins of scale or the number of Volts built, as even Government Motors doesn’t catch a break on raw commodity prices.
Enter the EPA. Because of the Supreme Court’s (questionable) interpretation of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments rendered in Massachusetts v. EPA, the agency is now in the business of specifying corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards. That used to be the purview of the Congress via the Department of Transportation, and the rules were pretty straightforward.
No more. The EPA has declared a CAFE standard of 34.1 mpg in 2016, but has “incentivized” the production of copper-gulping hybrids and plug-ins. The new dictate is about as convoluted as something the State Science Institute could set up in Atlas Shrugged. To wit: Even though the power that charges the Volt comes from a grid that is about 70% fossil fuel (i.e. carbon dioxide-emitting) based, the EPA will count the vehicle as having zero emissions when it is on battery power, contributing an inordinately large amount to a manufacturer’s CAFE.
Continues………(The next biggest thing in world copper production may be something known as the Pebble Partnership* near Iliamna, Alaska…………EPA is mulling a preemptive kill shot using an obscure portion of the Clean Water Act)
http://blogs.forbes.com/patrickmichaels/2011/05/12/the-environmental-protection-agency-comes-a-copper/?partner=yahootix
http://www.freedomworks.org/publications/end-of-the-line?src=nl
Solargate update: ‘Obama’s Pet Billionaire at Solyndra Make Take White House Down’
A high profile, politically well-connected California solar energy company that had won a $535 million loan guarantee from the Obama Administration declared bankruptcy earlier this month and closed its doors sending 1100 workers to the unemployment line. The demise of Solyndra has already sparked an FBI investigation, congressional hearings, and raised numerous questions of political cronyism and corruption connected to the highest levels of the Obama Administration.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/09/solargate-update-obamas-pet-billionaire.html
As president, Obama had a fiduciary responsibility to be forthright about Solyndra’s grim prospects — in speaking to the American taxpayers whose money he had redistributed, and to the American investors who were about to be solicited for even more funding.
… The president looked us in the eye and averred that, when it came to channeling public funds into private hands, “We can see the positive impacts right here at Solyndra.”
… The word for such schemes is fraud.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/from-scandal-free-to-near-scandal-fatigue-in-three-weeks/2/
Damage control at Joe Romm’s Climate Progress:-
Exclusive Timeline: Bush Administration Advanced Solyndra Loan Guarantee for Two Years, Media Blow the Story
January 2009: In an effort to show it has done something to support renewable energy, the Bush Administration tries to take Solyndra before a DOE credit review committee before President Obama is inaugurated. The committee, consisting of career civil servants with financial expertise, remands the loan back to DOE “without prejudice” because it wasn’t ready for conditional commitment.
March 2009: The same credit committee approves the strengthened loan application. The deal passes on to DOE’s credit review board. Career staff (not political appointees) within the DOE issue a conditional commitment setting out terms for a guarantee.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/09/13/317594/timeline-bush-administration-solyndra-loan-guarantee/
Obama was inaugurated Jan 20 2009
SunPower: Twice As Bad As Solyndra, Twice As Bad For Obama
How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project—three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project.
>>>>>>>>>>
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=46761
GOBSMACKING ARTICLE………….UNBELIEVABLE
Breaking – “Greengate”: Solyndra loaned 527,000,000 by Obama after he was advised they would collapse.
http://www.globalclimatescam.com/2011/09/greengate/
The video clips are worth watching. “It’s not easy being green…”
Watts Up takes a swipe at Hot-Topic:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/05/answering-a-reader-question-on-climate-web-traffic/
Do we say Gareth not “Renowned Down” – Under?
Green Jobs Brown Out
How to spend $157,000 per job WSJ.com 10/11/11
The green jobs subsidy story gets more embarrassing by the day. Three years ago President Obama promised that by the end of the decade America would have five million green jobs, but so far some $90 billion in government spending has delivered very few.
A new report by the Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General examined a $500 million grant under the stimulus program to the Employment and Training Administration to “train and prepare individuals for careers in ‘green jobs.'” So far about $162.8 million has been spent. The program was supposed to train 125,000 workers, but only 53,000 have been “trained” so far, only 8,035 have found jobs, and only 1,033 were still in the job after six months.
[…]
The jobs record is even more dismal when you consider that many of the jobs classified as green aren’t even new jobs, much less green
[…]
The silver lining is that the IG found that as of “June 30, 2011, $327.3 million remained unexpended” from the Labor program’s appropriation. The IG urges that all funds “determined not to be needed should be recouped as soon as practicable and to the extent permitted by law.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/10/green-jobs-brown-out.html
Architects Propose “Bibs” To Shield NYC From Global Warming’s Floods
Global warming will make New York spectacularly vulnerable to flooding. Some researchers even suggest that in 200 years, Manhattan could look like Venice. Does that mean 8 million people oughta start packing their bags? Of course not. But experts agree the city should do something. Enter Tingwei Xu and Xie Zhang. The U Penn students think New York can protect itself the way a guy cracking lobster protects his tie: by strapping on a bib.
No joke. In their vision, an intelligent, lace-like membrane would be draped over building bases in low-lying parts of the city, guarding precious infrastructure from incoming floods. The membrane would feature a “transforming surface” that’d adapt to different weather conditions, offering more protection when it’s wet out and less when it’s dry. It’d also be planted with trees and other flora, which can form a natural barrier against floodwater.
>>>>>>> H/t Steven Goddard
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1668998/architects-propose-bibs-to-shield-nyc-from-global-warmings-floods
81 Tweets and spectacular model visualization aids.
Although I’m not sure of the significance of the guy in the HazChem suit. Perhaps he’s there because Hansen said:-
Or maybe its a CO2-proof suit to guard against the poisonous atmosphere of the future..
But hang on…..
The words “Dumb” and “Dumber” come to mind.
From the comments:
Mike Jones
02/09/2012 02:12 AM
Umm…are those Star Wars stormtroopers in the background of that last rendering? Who is supposed to take these bibs and fictional characters with laser guns seriously?
It’s probably the space cadets from Hot Topic protecting themselves from methane bombs and itinerant rent boys.
Virginia court rejects sceptic’s bid for climate science emails
Campaign by attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, to gain access to Michael Mann’s material, is dismissed by state supreme court
[…]
It is not entirely clear how Cuccinelli will respond. The attorney general is planning to run for governor in 2013, and he showed no sign of regret in his response to the decision on Friday.
“From the beginning, we have said that we were simply trying to review documents that are unquestionably state property to determine whether or not fraud had been committed,” his office said in a statement. “Today, the court effectively held that state agencies do not have to provide state-owned property to state investigators looking into potential fraud involving government funds.”
>>>>>>>>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/02/virginia-court-sceptic-access-climate-emails
Described as a “win” for climate science by Bob Berwyn (a Steve Goddard, Real Science target – Google it)
http://summitcountyvoice.com/2012/03/02/a-win-for-climate-science-in-virginia/
Written Statement of John R. Christy
The University of Alabama in Huntsville
Committee on Environment and Public Works
1 August 2012
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/christy-testimony-2012.pdf
John Christy’s EPW testimony
Posted on August 1, 2012 | 595 Comments
by Judith Curry
http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/01/john-christys-epw-testimony/
Figure 2.1 Christy Statement:-
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/christy-fig.jpg?w=808&h=624
Curry:-
JC conclusion
I think we can consider Judith Curry’s preliminary critique to be a strong endorsement of John Christy’s testimony.
Wind and solar get the most taxpayer help for the least production
The folks at the Institute for Energy Research used the Energy Department data to calculate a subsidy per unit of electricity produced. Per megawatt hour, natural gas, oil and coal received 64 cents, hydropower 82 cents, nuclear $3.14, wind $56.29 and solar a whopping $775.64.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/wind-and-solar-get-most-taxpayer-help.html
Unbelievable – and these are just the subsidies; how do the prices compare?
Wind is 100 times and solar 1000 times more expensive than conventional energy, and that’s only for the government (read “the taxpayer”) before you even begin to build a generator.
Oh, reason! Why hast thou forsaken me?
“…..how do the prices compare?”
Good question. I don’t know how the market for wholesale electricity works exactly in the USA but I think it’s much the same as NZ.
I’ve been reading the Technical Guide for Energy Outlook modeling in NZ and it works like this:-
So basically (as I see it), each generator competes against each other with bid offers on the spot market for base load dispatch and peak load dispatch. So whether a generator is making or losing depends on the spot price (if their bid is accepted) and their long-run (and short-run for thermal) marginal cost (LRMC).
Therefore the wholesale spot price is the bid that the demand-side buyer accepts no matter what type of supply-side source just that in this USA situation, some of the supply-side players have only been able to enter and continue in the market with the benefit of subsidies.
That USA subsidy environment doesn’t exist in NZ.
“That USA subsidy environment doesn’t exist in NZ”
Carbon pricing in NZ and AU distorts the wholesale market in much the same way as US subsidies in that the ranking over time for when new generation of type is commissioned, is turned on its head.
I’ve done a very rough analysis of that ranking change from 0$/t to 100$/t carbon charge using the graphs in the Electricity Authority report ‘Wind Integration – the long view (NZ)’ here:-
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/climate/climate-science/energy-and-fuel/comment-page-2/#comment-111310
Wind jumps from about #6 and 7 to about #2 in that scenario but carbon pricing has been heading south from the nominal NZ$25 mark so the ranking moves in the opposite direction towards the 0$/t scenario which in combination with a decline in demand for electricity means new wind projects get shelved as happened to Contact Energy’s Hauauru ma raki (HMR) “up to” 504 MW wind farm in the Waikato:-
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/6682364/Wind-taken-from-Waikato-power-plants-sails
A US equivalent project would have gone ahead with the backing of the subsidies irrespective of economic ranking.
Frozen Alaska Bucking Global Warming Trend
As the rest of the world contends with unusually warm temperatures and scorching drought, Alaska has been bucking the trend since 2000 by reporting some of the coldest winters on record.
Like most of the planet, the state has been heating up steadily over the past century and is frequently cited as one of the fastest-warming areas on the planet, according to the Alaska Dispatch, an online newspaper. The Alaska Climate Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks notes the state was warming at roughly twice the pace as the rest of the planet, particularly from the 1970s into the 1990s, reports the Dispatch.
But since 2000, nearly all the National Weather Service monitoring stations sprinkled across the vast state have reported colder-than-average temperatures. The station at King Salmon on the Alaska Peninsula, for example, experienced an average 4.5 degree Fahrenheit (2.9 degrees Celsius) drop in temperature over the course of the first decade of this century.
>>>>>>>>
http://www.livescience.com/25907-alaska-climate-pdo.html
Climate-Change Science Poised to Enter Nation’s Classrooms
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-04/climate-change-science-poised-to-enter-nation-s-classrooms.html
“The Next Generation standards require teaching the accepted science that says carbon dioxide emissions from burning oil, coal, and gas is causing the earth’s climate to warm”
How will they explain the standstill, is that an extracurricular activity?
Simple, cherry picking is child’s play
>”cherry picking is child’s play”
Also unavoidable in this case. Children do have access to the internet these days, especially at school.
Your link is dead BTW.
Oops, I haven’t quite mastered HTML tags, lets try again: Cherry-Picking is Child’s Play
SO when Pachauri said in his interview with The Australian that there had been no warming for 17 years, was he confused, misrepresented, or was this actually what he meant?
This leads onto the education thing. If we have had no more warming for another year, will “global warming” be taught as part of the history syllabus? After all, there will be no one at school in a year who has experienced “global warming” in their lifetimes.
Simon is pointing (via Tamino) to the very high 2012 US temperature left out of Coleman’s graph at WUWT. I agree, it was obvious USA had a warm one so there’s no excuse for a one-year-too-short series (like Mike’s AGU Trick – seven years too short). The decadal trend wont have changed much though.
I’m inclined to think, like you Andy, that selling (let alone teaching) the “accepted science” will be problematic with class of 2014+ children who have not experienced the rapid rise of the 80s and 90s and who will inevitably do a bit of fact checking in their own time. It will be even harder if the present trend continues, or – heaven forbid – cools.
A friend of mine reports that his daughter learns about climate change, ocean acidification and other trendy causes in her geography class
So science goes in science classes, settled science goes in geography
Mike Hulme of UEA was a geographer before he discovered the Cause and became a climate scientist
Now he calls himself a Geographer again
Is Tamino trying to say that there actually has been a warming trend over the last 15yrs? Ah I see, you can only examine the trend over the last 15 yrs if you include the previous century before that – now I see what he means by cherry picking.
I noticed that rather curious graph too. According to Tamino, there has been around 1 deg F of warming since 2000. He appears to be applying some kind of running mean or other trick
>”…some kind of running mean..” – I think it’s a polynomial, that has a 1940 peak that the CO2 curve doesn’t have. It does however look very much like the 60 year cycle, the current phase of which should last until 2034 i.e. look for that polynomial to change phase very soon with additional data.
That’s not the significant cycle though, the greater is described here:-
Report at the WSEAS|CIEO International Conference Faro, Algarve, Portugal, 3-5 November 2010
Climate Change in the XXIst Century: Mechanisms and Predictions
2.3 Climate change in this century
Based on the evolution of the duration of the Schwabe cycle and on the satellite measurements of the total solar irradiance during the last 30 years, astronomers predicted the amplitudes of the next three Schwabe cycles, of about 70, 50 and 35 sunspots at the maximum, as compared to 110 of the last complete cycle. This means that a new Little Ice Age will be developing during the XXIst century, with the lowest solar activity achieved around 2040 and the temperatures hitting the bottom at around 2055, at some 1.0 K below the present value for the global average temperatures. This is comparable to what occurred during the Maunder minimum, see Fig. 4 [16,17], being due to the existence of a bicentennial solar activity component, which produces changes in TSI that are significantly larger than those occurring during the Schwabe cycle, accompanied by increased intensity in GCR and cloud cover. This bicentennial component has produced notable climate differences, such as between the present solar maximum and the Maunder and Dalton minimums (Fig. 5), causing Little Ice Ages once in about every 200 years, as the historical record for the last 7500 years shows, with 18 of such cooling events documented [18].
http://clima-virtual-vs-real.blogspot.co.nz/2010/11/climate-change-in-xxist-century.html
“Little Ice Ages once in about every 200 years” means we are overdue given the last Minimum began about 1790 and the one before that about 1645.
But I’m in no rush.
The kids of course, will know nothing of the solar influence evident in climate cycles because it’s not “accepted science”.
Unless solar cycles turn up in geology or other non climate science module in their geography class that Andy reports up-thread. Fine to teach the CO2-centric theory but how does it apply to Little Ice Ages (18 in the last 7500 yrs) when climate was radically different to the “anthropocene” and likely to be repeated in the near future i.e. in those kids lifetime for sure?
It would be a rolling mean. Once again, you should never apply polynomial regressions to time series. Tamino has been blogging recently about autocorrelation in the noise of temperature data and how to correct for it, smoothing is a simple way of doing that.
It’s not a rolling mean, aka moving average, because it extends over the entire series. Look at the first and last datapoints in relation to the curve, there’s a corresponding curve point. If it were a 7 year moving average say, there would be 6 yrs missing at the start of the curve.
>”Once again, you should never apply polynomial regressions to time series”
What a load of rubbish. Tamino has applied a polynomial of some order and it represents the cyclical nature of the data with a very high correlation value I’m sure. It’s just a matter then, of looking for the long-term cycles that fit the curve in order to know if projection can be made and how long for. In this case it would go against the prevailing cycles to do so at this juncture because there’s no driver acting to extend it on that trajectory. Scafetta will find that out eventually too.
The IPCC are being gazumped by natural cycles right now but don’t know it obviously because they can only point to “natural variation” while they’re scrabbling around to explain the unpredicted (by them) standstill.
This all will make an excellent case study for educational institutions in the future.
Seems strange that Tamino can get a rising moving average for the 21st c when Hansen makes it flat for a 5 year moving average
It will be an ARIMA model which is a moving average. Also note that the temperature series is solely the continental US (48 States) and that last year was exceptionally hot in the US.
If natural cycles exist they would be teased out by a Principal Component Analysis. Instead, PC1 is a ‘hockey stick’, even in McIntyre’s dataset 🙂
Simon, thanks, I didn’t notice that this was a US only temperature series
>”It will be an ARIMA model which is a moving average”
A combination of regression, moving average and polynomial but mostly polynomial by the looks of this:-
The ARIMA Procedure
http://delbecque.free.fr/chap07%20-%20ARIMA.pdf
Notation for Pure ARIMA Models [page 17]
Mathematically the pure ARIMA model is written as
[Equation]
where
(B) is the autoregressive operator, represented as a polynomial in the
back shift operator: (B) = 1 1B : : : pBp
(B) is the moving-average operator, represented as a polynomial in the
back shift operator: (B) = 1 1B : : : qBq
>”If natural cycles exist they would be teased out by a Principal Component Analysis”
“teased out”? Or identified by smoothing? There are wads of literature on the 60 year cycle (as per PDO BTW) and the multitude of natural cycles evident in times series of climate (just read Scafetta for example) but they don’t find their way into IPCC assessments natch.
If you, Tamino, or anyone, are going to use an ARIMA model to forecast climate, the forecast will be meaningless unless the longer-term cycles (and corresponding drivers) are taken into account. Anyone using ARIMA or EMD or PCI or polynomial or moving average or linear regression for forecasting without cognizance of the limitations of the tool or what the components they are seeing in the data actually represent in the real world are fooling themselves.
Tamino obviously does not understand the earth’s solar driven ocean heat sink based enthalpy, or ENSO processes, or thermal inertia and lag, or solar varation. He thinks they can be “taken out” of the data but by doing so he overlooks key indicators and is left with a totally unrealistic trajectory. Mind you he is not alone on that. There are papers and articles by scientists from the non-CO2 side making the same mistakes.
It’s the (very) approx 200 year cycle that’s biting the IPCC on the backside right now (and Tamino over the next few years – he’s already wrong since 2010 in the GAT metric).
‘The 200-year sunspot cycle is also a weather cycle’
http://personal.inet.fi/tiede/tilmari/sunspot5.html
>”Anyone using ARIMA or EMD or PCI…” – PCA that should be.
I get a similar profile but not smoothed as much as Tamino’s US atm temp ARIMA (?) smoothing in IMF6 (last intermediate mode) from an EMD analysis of HadSST2 but the residual signal tells a totally different story (rapid warming is over contrary to ARIMA – if that’s what Tamino used).
I wouldn’t project the centennial scale residual from a 132 yr series for prediction though but it is a key leading indicator that evolves (will get dropped to IMF7 and new residual eventually) as new data comes in. IMF6 is mukti-decadal oscillations and IMF5 is inter-decadal oscillations.
Doesn’t identify the 60 yr cycle with any clarity though, ARIMA would do a good job of that I suspect if Tamino projected a longer series Scafetta style. But both guys miss what the EMD residual reveals, what the 200 yr cycle implies, and what SC24 is now telling everyone that wont listen to what the likes of De Jager, Duhau, Abdussamatov, Timo Niroma up-thread, and a bunch of others are saying.
>”It will be an ARIMA model”
Maybe it is but the resulting curve looks exactly like a 4th order polynomial with trajectory heading skywards in the 21st century (using SST instead of USAT). A 5th order poly turns down in the 21st century OTOH.
Leads me to think that the orders of the polynomial representations in ARIMA (if that’s what it is) determines the shape of the model profile in the same way that manual selection of polynomial order does for a trend regression.
Andrew Montford weighs in:-
‘A despotism over the mind’
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/3/5/a-despotism-over-the-mind.html
“I don’t know about you, but I think a balanced view of global warming would involve teaching the evidence against global warming as well as the evidence for it. Human activities are “major factors”? Surely they may be major factors. Surely the failure of temperatures to rise in recent years suggests that they may equally be minor factors. Should the attribution statement not be qualified with the fact that it depends on computer models that may be useful as toys for scientists but, having no proven ability to predict future climate, are far being ready to inform policymakers?
Will the children be told this? Or are they just pawns of a left-wing educational establishment who must hear the recitation of the global warming dogma?”
New York tab for 100% renewables put at $367b
New York would need about $US382 billion ($367 billion) and wind turbines covering an area equivalent to 13 per cent of the state’s land mass if it followed a Cornell University plan to derive all of its power from renewables.
Robert Howarth, a Cornell ecology professor, suggested last month the state could get half its power from wind and enough from solar, tidal and other forms of clean energy to replace fossil fuels by 2030. The plan for 254 gigawatts of generation capacity would cost about $US1.5 million a megawatt, or $US382 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The findings cast doubt on the ability of the state to eliminate oil, natural gas and coal from its energy supply. The Cornell proposal would require onshore wind turbines covering an area 3.3 times the size of New York City’s five boroughs.
“It’s too ambitious by 2030 to replace all the state’s power with renewables, although big progress could be made,” Angus McCrone, a senior analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London, said today. The projections, he said, look “unrealistic” for individual technologies.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/new-york-tab-for-100-renewables-put-at-367b-20130409-2hhys.html#ixzz2Px44INxk
U.S. Breadbasket At Risk From Global Cooling NOAA Indicates – Crop Failures, World Hunger A Result?
While left-leaning U.S. politicians, bureaucrats and the partisan mainstream press continue to push the silly catastrophic AGW hysteria from human CO2 emissions, a significant cooling trend (per NOAA) across a critically important global breadbasket continues – if the latest 15-year global cooling trend persists, crop yields will suffer immensely
[see charts]
As has been well documented, global warming has gone AWOL and in some regions of the world, global cooling trends have materialized, which scientists across the world are starting to express concern with.
In the key crop regions of the U.S., there has been an extended cooling trend that persists despite the immense human CO2 emissions released over the last two decades. The above four NOAA charts depict those cooling trends across the a wide swath of American agricultural production. These charts represent the main American corn, soybean, spring and winter wheat growing areas.
What the huge U.S. breadbasket needs at this point is a few years of some good old fashioned global warming that will reverse the potential devastation a mass cooling would deliver to crop yields.
Unfortunately, though, it appears nature is not delivering what the American farmers and ranchers need this spring.
http://www.c3headlines.com/2013/04/us-breadbasket-at-risk-from-global-cooling-noaa-indicates-crop-failures-world-hunger-a-result.html
Barack Obama declares war on The Deniers
https://my.barackobama.com/page/s/combat-climate-deniers
Update . Not sure if this is a scam. The second page is a donate page. Looks dodgy
From my inbox this morning, from BarackObama.com
Irish deputy leader of Opposition calling Obama a war Criminal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDjsnjeuz5Y
Whitehouse deleting all of Steven Goddard’s tweets
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/censored-by-the-white-house/
Obama must really have learned something from the Realclimate/Guardian/SkS teams
‘Obama lays out climate action plan’
By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website
President Obama mocked critics who contend climate change is not a threat or deny its reality.
“I don’t have much patience for anyone who denies that this challenge is real,” he said. “We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society.”
The president said climate change posed an immediate threat, with the 12 hottest years on record all occurring in the past 15 years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23032890
# # #
I see Oblahblah’s right up with the latest, but irrelevant, data. And the stock response to critics too (or, how to insult, anger and alienate a large part of the populace). People voted for that?
“Obama’s rip-roaring speech tonight has put climate change back on the agenda ”
Geoffrey Lean
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geoffreylean/100223486/obamas-rip-roaring-speech-tonight-has-put-climate-change-back-on-the-agenda/
Scroll past the fatuous article to the comments section for a laugh
Heh, turns out the president of the Flat Earth Society, Daniel Shenton, personally thinks the evidence suggests fossil fuel usage is contributing to global warming (via JN):
‘Actually, even the Flat Earth Society believes in climate change’
[Shenton] “I accept that climate change is a process which has been ongoing since beginning of detectable history, but there seems to be a definite correlation between the recent increase in world-wide temperatures and man’s entry into the industrial age,” he said. “If it’s a coincidence, it’s quite a remarkable one. We may have experienced a temperature increase even without our use of fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution, but I doubt it would be as dramatic as what we’re seeing now.”
As for Obama’s dig at his group, which indeed thinks the world is flat, Shenton said he’s not surprised and doesn’t take it personally.
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/25/flat_earth_society_believes_in_climate_change/
Obama pulled a Hansen trick:
‘Obama resorts to stagecraft as he lays out his aggressive climate change plan’
by Thomas Richard,
On June 25, President Obama, resorting to his usual props and theatrics, spoke outside on a typical June muggy day in Washington D.C., and spelled out his aggressive plan to address man-made global warming. Often during his speech, he pulled out his bright white handkerchief and wiped his forehead, a bit of stagecraft that the cameras gobbled up.
For those unfamiliar with Georgetown University, it also has an enormous indoor, air-conditioned auditorium (see slideshow) where other prominent figures have given addresses to large crowds. So why didn’t Obama choose the more secure, cooler auditorium rather than the humidity-soaked outdoor location? Stagecraft.
Even the Christian Science Monitor noted the obvious histrionics of a president………
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/11373-obama-resorts-to-stagecraft-as-he-lays-out-his-aggressive-climate-change-plan.html
‘Obama’s Radical Climate Agenda’
By The Editors
[…]
If only President Obama simply had cried wolf. Instead, the president announced that, on behalf of “all of humankind,” he is in effect directing the EPA to take over the American economy. New power plants will be subject to emissions controls, and existing plants will have to be retrofitted to comply with new standards. New restrictions on heavy trucks will affect the movement of freight and goods across the country. New subsidies will be handed down for politically connected energy firms, and federal lands will be set aside for their use. New federal impositions will affect the construction of factories, commercial buildings, and private homes. The president says that this is all enabled by the “overwhelming judgment of science.”
It certainly has not been enabled by something so mundane as the law. We rather suspect that the overwhelming judgment of Congress would be against the president’s program of regimenting the entire American economy under the management of a newly empowered EPA. But the president has made it clear that he intends to act largely through administrative fiat, subverting the democratic process and the people’s elected representatives. Unhappily, the Supreme Court has abetted this ambition by misconstruing the Clean Air Act as a warrant of action on global warming.
>>>>>>
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/352025/obamas-radical-climate-agenda-editors
# # #
If ever there was an indictment on climate alarmism, “the Supreme Court has abetted this ambition by misconstruing the Clean Air Act as a warrant of action on global warming” is it.
I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this from the USA.
‘Blowing Smoke: Obama Climate Speech Riddled With Lies’
A dangerous, arrogant, fact-free tirade.
By Dr Tim Ball and Tom Harris
[…]
Obama used the erroneous phrase “carbon pollution” a total of twenty times in his Georgetown speech.
He is, of course, really speaking of CO2, an odorless, invisble gas essential to plant life and in no way a pollutant. Yet the Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) still designates CO2 a “harmful substance” so as to allow greater bureaucratic control of industry under the Clean Air Act. In Tuesday’s address, the president promised to expand the EPA’s CO2 regulations to cover existing power stations, an action sure to cost billions of dollars and millions of jobs for no environmental benefit. EPA’s claim is based on three lines of evidence that a recent amicus brief [hotlinked] filed with the U.S. Supreme Court shows are invalid. Regardless, calling CO2 “carbon” helps Obama politically since it encourages people to think of CO2 as associated with soot, something that is pure carbon and is clearly dirty and undesirable.
Of course, we can and should reduce the amount of soot going in to the atmosphere, and apart from China, significant advances have occurred. Scrubber technology for coal-fired power plants has been available for a long time. If Obama really wants to help people’s health and the environment, he should encourage all possible use of scrubbers.
The “carbon pollution” mistake is often used by activists to focus negative attention specifically on coal-fired electricity generation, since “carbon” comes from the Latin carbo, meaning coal. Over 40 percent of U.S. energy comes from coal, and so killing this energy source is fundamental to the president’s apparent goals of expanding government control and redistributing wealth. Obama wants to end coal use entirely in the U.S., no matter how clean it can be made. Obama even told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2008: “What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as an ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.”
Continues >>>>>
http://pjmedia.com/blog/blowing-smoke-obama-climate-speech-riddled-with-lies/?singlepage=true
Amicus brief to the Supreme Court:
Summary Of The Argument …………………… 4
Reasons For Granting The Petitions ………………… 6
I. The Conclusion That EPA Drew From Its Three Lines Of Evidence Is Demonstrably Invalid …………….. 7
A. First Line Of Evidence: EPA’s GHG Fingerprint (Or Hot Spot) Theory……. 9
B. Second Line Of Evidence: The Purported Unusual Rise In GAST ………. 13
C. Third Line Of Evidence: Climate Models …………… 16
II. Serious Deficiencies In EPA’s Process Contributed To Its Scientific Errors …………. 21
Conclusion…………. 24
http://drtimball.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Amicus-Brief.pdf
Page 30,
Some of the signatories to the October 2009 letter and other independent scientists, in a group that also included some of the amici before this Court, lodged an amicus brief with the court of appeals making similar points about the data and EPA’s scientific conclusions. Brief of Amici Curiae Scientists in Support of Petitioners Supporting Reversal, Coalition for Responsible Regulation, Inc. v. Environmental Protection Agency, No 09-1322 (CADC June 8, 2011), ECF No. 1312291. The D.C. Circuit declined to grant leave for that brief to be filed.
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT
In the midst of an unsettled and vigorous international debate regarding the existence of purported global warming and the role—if any—of human-emitted greenhouse gases (GHGs) in contributing to that alleged warming, EPA concluded with near absolute certainty that temperatures in the second half of the twentieth century were “unusually” high because of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. 74 Fed. Reg. 66518 (2009). That sweeping conclusion was a critical component of the EPA’s Endangerment Finding, and so was an impetus for the most significant and far-reaching regulatory program ever devised by a federal agency.
Amici urge the Court to grant petitioners’ request for certiorari because the three “lines of evidence” from the administrative record that EPA relied on do not support the conclusion that manmade greenhouse gas emissions have caused climate warming in the latter half of the twentiethcentury. Indeed, each line of evidence is demonstrably invalid.
EPA’s first line of evidence, its purported basic physical understanding of the effect of GHGs and other factors on climate, is invalid because it relies on the existence of an atmospheric “hot spot” or “fingerprint” that simply does not exist in the real world’s temperature data.
Its second line of evidence, the assertion that temperatures around the globe rose to unusual and dangerously high levels over the last fifty years, is also demonstrably false using the best temperature data available.
Likewise, EPA’s third line of evidence, involving computerized climate models, is also invalid. It can be shown that those models, premised on faulty assumptions, just do not produce forecasts that match up with the real world.
No specialized scientific education or previous experience with climate science is needed to see that those facts are true. Each of EPA’s lines of evidence requires that the most relevant and credible temperature data available show upward-sloping trends in temperature. That is true for the Hot Spot or GHG Fingerprint theory, the assertion that worldwide temperatures have been anomalous, and for actual data to conform to EPA’s model forecasts of rising global average surface temperature (GAST). In science, theories must be validated against the most credible empirical data. Each of EPA’s three lines of evidence will be shown to be invalid via such easy to understand hypothesis testing.
EPA reached its invalid conclusions through a highly deficient process. EPA refused to examine “relevant data,” FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 U.S. 502, 513 (2009) (quoting Motor Vehicles Mfrs. Assn. of U.S., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43 (1983)), and made other procedural errors. EPA’s Endangerment Finding is not “rational,” but arbitrary and capricious. Fox, 556 U.S., at 516. Amici therefore respectfully request that this Court grant petitioners’ request for certiorari in this case.
‘Submission of Legal Brief To the US Supreme Court.’
by admin on May 27, 2013
On May 23, 2013 eleven of us filed a brief with the US Supreme Court supporting the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) et al’s Petition for a writ of certiorari. The brief is asking the Supreme Court to consider our scientific argument that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) CO2 Endangerment Finding be dropped because of scientific and legal errors. The following is the press release explaining our Brief, which is attached.
>>>>>>>
http://drtimball.com/2013/submission-of-legal-brief-to-the-us-supreme-court/
“SLF’s petition is the only petition to the Supreme Court that includes a purely science argument developed to show that EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding (EF) should be Vacated. Other Petitioners argue that such a decision is in order but make purely legal or process arguments.”
Southeastern Legal Foundation.
About SLF: Founded in 1976, Southeastern Legal Foundation is celebrating its 37th year as an national constitutional public interest law firm and policy center that advocates limited government, individual economic freedom, and the free enterprise system in the courts of law and public opinion. Our mission is to engage in litigation and public policy advocacy in support of these principles.
We look for cases and issues in which our involvement makes a difference, not just to the parties involved, but also on the policies and issues in dispute. We believe that the U.S. Constitution is a complete document, creating limits on government. When government — federal, state and local — goes beyond the constitutional limits, we are there to enforce constitutional limitations. We are not a single-issue organization; rather, we are a conservative public interest law firm and policy center dedicated to creating binding legal precedent and positive public policy change for all Americans.
Mission and Goals
Southeastern Legal Foundation is a public interest law firm which advocates limited government, individual economic freedom, and the free enterprise system. We look for cases in which our involvement can make a difference, not just to the parties involved, but also on the policies or issues that are in dispute.
Case Centers
• Global Warming?
• Property Rights
• Free Speech
• Census / Redistricting
• Campaign Finance
• Reverse Discrimination
• Ten Commandments
• Honor Roll of Freedom
• Legislative Education
• Unemployment Ins.
• Budget & Taxes
http://www.southeasternlegal.org/about-slf/
Southeastern Legal Foundation: Case Center • Global Warming?
Global Warming Litigation Project
http://www.southeasternlegal.org/global-warming-lawsuit/
Find out the latest on the legal and scientific battle underway to save common sense and the American economy! http://www.epalawsuit.org
* Home
* Why a Lawsuit?
* How the EPA Got it Wrong
* Legal/Case Documents
* The Science
* Media – Audio/Video/Print
* About SLF
* EPA Lawsuit Updates http://epalawsuit.com/epa-lawsuit-updates/
Home: Lawsuits and Science
SLF began work on global warming issues in 2006 with investigations into mass tort/class action lawsuits filed after Hurricane Katrina alleging public nuisance claims against American industry for “causing” alleged global warming that caused the destructive hurricane. During the investigation, SLF uncovered scientific evidence by leading credible scientists that “global warming”/climate change is not the “consensus” established by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its reports. Further investigation – as well as review of recent disclosures by a whistleblower at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Copenhagen conference failures, and “Climategate” disclosures of alleged data fraud – reveal that the matter of human-caused (anthropogenic) climate change is anything but “settled science.”
Nonetheless, despite more than 300,000 thousand lucid, relevant formal public comments submitted to the EPA during the 2009 public comment period on its proposed Endangerment Finding related to carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions, including a comprehensive report from SLF (see inside this website [top of page options] at “Why a Lawsuit?” and “How the EPA Got It Wrong”), EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson issued an Endangerment Finding on December 7, 2009.
The Endangerment Finding indicates that draconian, costly regulations will be promulgated by the EPA in 2010 and beyond (according to reports, more than 600 pages of new mandates that will impose costly and invasive burdens on American industry and energy and, therefore, consumers and taxpayers).
Taking the Matter to Court
SLF, representing a group of well-informed and concerned Americans, including leaders in Congress who have been intimately involved in climate change issues for more than a decade, has brought the first of likely several court and administrative legal actions. The goal is to compel the federal government to follow the laws as enacted by Congress and to pursue legitimate public policy based on legitimate scientific data. The American people deserve no less, and the U.S. Constitution mandates it.
The proposed measures in the EPA’s arsenal will cripple the American economy at a cost of at least $1 trillion over the next decade – and will provide no significant environmental benefit to the climate and environment over the next 30 years.
SLF is providing background legal and scientific information on this website during the pendency of the various legal actions in order to ensure that the American people have access to the proceedings and to solid representative materials of the scientific inquiry into climate change.
[SLF represents 12 members of Congress, 15 companies and associations, and has been joined in the appeal (Petition for Writ of Certiorari) by Competitive Enterprise Institute, FreedomWorks, and the Science and Environmental Policy Project]
>”…review of recent disclosures by a whistleblower at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)”
‘EPA Whistleblower Criticizes Global Warming Science and Policy in New Peer-Reviewed Study’
Study Shows Claims of Catastrophic Warming Are Overwhelmingly Contradicted By Real-World Data’
By Christine Hall, April 01, 2011
Washington, D.C., April 1, 2011 – The scientific hypotheses underlying global warming alarmism are overwhelmingly contradicted by real-world data, and for that reason economic studies on the alleged benefits of controlling greenhouse gas emissions are baseless. That’s the finding of a new peer-reviewed report by a former EPA whistleblower.
Dr. Alan Carlin, now retired, was a career environmental economist at EPA when CEI broke the story of his negative report on the agency’s proposal to regulate greenhouse gases in June, 2009. Dr. Carlin’s supervisor had ordered him to keep quiet about the report and to stop working on global warming issues. EPA’s attempt to silence Dr. Carlin became a highly-publicized embarrassment to the agency, given Administrator Lisa Jackson’s supposed commitment to transparency.
Dr. Carlin’s new study, A Multidisciplinary, Science-Based Approach to the Economics of Climate Change [link at bottom of page], is published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. It finds that fossil fuel use has little impact on atmospheric CO2 levels. Moreover, the claim that atmospheric CO2 has a strong positive feedback effect on temperature is contradicted on several grounds, ranging from low atmospheric sensitivity to volcanic eruptions, to the lack of ocean heating and the absence of a predicted tropical “hot spot.”
However, most economic analyses of greenhouse gas emission controls, such as those being imposed by EPA, have been conducted with no consideration of the questionable nature of the underlying science. For that reason, according to Dr. Carlin, the actual “economic benefits of reducing CO2 emissions may be about two orders of magnitude less” than what is claimed in those reports.
>>>>>>>
http://cei.org/news-releases/epa-whistleblower-criticizes-global-warming-science-and-policy-new-peer-reviewed-study
See ‘Getting To The Bottom Of Cook’s 97% Lie’ in the Skeptical Science thread re the Carlin paper (“endorses the consensus” in The Consensus Project):
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/climate/controversy-and-scandal/skeptical-science/#comment-214736
>”…according to Dr. Carlin, the actual “economic benefits of reducing CO2 emissions may be about two orders of magnitude less” than what is claimed in those reports”
See ‘The Social Cost of Carbon’ in the Economics thread:
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/climate/economics/#comment-214789
Presumably these measures will depress the price of coal even further which will be good news for “green” countries like Germany who are building 24 new coal fired power plants.
Yes perhaps, but it does not necessarily follow. There will be a long time lag for that to occur that will take events beyond the Obama presidency but I think US coal producer stock prices have already taken a hit. It would be insane though if all this went ahead.
It has been observed that US would just increase exports of coal to Asia (China) and Europe (Germany) so it will be similar the the AU situation. Not good news for Solid Energy but it might mean cheaper coal would prolong Huntly or even make a new coal burner economic. Even now it’s not out of the question.
Re Obama circumventing Congress law to regulate CO2 emissions, Carlin’s EPA whistleblowing, and the EPA Endangerment Finding vs Global Warming Litigation Project – some duplicity (and nativity) in The Guardian:
‘James Clapper, EU play-acting, and political priorities’
Fixations on denouncing Edward Snowden distract, by design, from the serious transgressions of those who are far more powerful
Glenn Greenwald
“….the oft-repeated claim from President Barack Obama that the NSA is not listening in on Americans’ calls without warrants……..indisputably false.”
“What we see here, yet again, is this authoritarian strain in US political life that the most powerful political officials cannot commit crimes or engage in serious wrongdoing. The only political crimes come from exposing and aggressively challenging those officials.”
“How is it anything other than pure whistleblowing to disclose secret documents proving that top government officials have been systematically deceiving the public about vital matters and/or skirting if not violating legal and Constitutional limits?”
“…and yes: the US persecutes whistleblowers”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/03/clapper-lying-snowden-eu-bolivia
H/t bill July 4, 2013 at 5:26 pm
Clapper vs. Congress: Further proof, if any were needed, that these garçons do not feel that they are beholden to their democratic governments.
http://hot-topic.co.nz/people-talking-11/#comment-38288
“nativity” should be naivety. I used spellcheck to correct naivity assuming the correct rendition would be top of list – it wasn’t.
Republican report: Critical Thinking on Climate Change
Senate GOP criticizes past global warming claims ahead of hearing
Senate Republicans have released a report debunking catastrophic predictions made about global warming in advance of the Environment and Public Works Committee hearing held today.
“Over nearly four decades, numerous predictions have had adequate time to come to fruition, providing an opportunity to analyze and compare them to today’s statistics,” reads the report from Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
The report examines the 15-year break from global warming, sea level rises, extreme weather, and the unilateral regulations proposed by the Obama administration.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07/republican-report-critical-thinking-on.html
United States Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee
Minority Report
‘Critical Thinking on Climate Change’
Questions to Consider Before Taking Regulatory
Action and Implementing Economic Policies
July 18, 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………………… 1
I. CLIMATE MODELS: THE 15-YEAR HIATUS IN WARMING………………………….. 2
II. SEA LEVEL RISE: IT’S MEASURED IN MILLIMETERS, NOT FEET……………….… 7
III. EXTREME WEATHER: HURRICANES, DROUGHTS, HEAT WAVES AND WILDFIRES.10
IV. CLIMATE REGULATION: WHAT IS IT REALLY ABOUT? .……………………………. 15
V. THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED: THE GOVERNMENT CAN’T CONTROL CLIMATE……. 17
VI. SUMMARY: POINTS ON U.S. UNILATERAL REGULATION…………………………… 19
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=f4ace657-9490-4f4c-86f3-25d367e2085c
Page 23:
“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.” – Aristotle, Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great
‘US Republicans seek to stymie Obama on climate’
US House Republicans proposed cutting the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by a third and denying funds for a key part of President Barack Obama’s plan to combat global warming.
The House Appropriations committee’s panel that oversees the EPA will consider cutting $US2.8 billion ($3.03 billion) from the agency’s 2014 budget, and prohibit the administration from spending on greenhouse-gas rules for power plants, the centerpiece of Obama’s climate plan. The budget for the year starting October 1, which will get a vote tomorrow in the subcommittee, also would bar the EPA from imposing new curbs on sulfur in gasoline and on the use of water by power plants.
“By holding back overly zealous and unnecessary environmental regulations, this bill can have a positive effect on our economy and will help encourage job growth,” Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, a Kentucky Republican, said today in a statement.
House Republicans are seeking to limit the president’s efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, which scientists say are causing global warming. While the measures with the restrictions have little chance of being adopted in the Democratic-led Senate, they underscore efforts administration critics are considering to head off or slow the EPA’s regulation.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/us-republicans-seek-to-stymie-obama-on-climate-20130723-2qff2.html#ixzz2ZqK4vanJ
‘Lawmakers vote to thwart EPA move on ‘social cost of carbon’ ‘
By Ben Geman and Pete Kasperowicz
The House voted Thursday to block the Environmental Protection Agency from weighing the benefits of curbing carbon emissions when crafting major energy-related regulations.
Lawmakers voted 234-178 for Rep. Tim Murphy’s (R-Pa.) amendment to prevent EPA from factoring the “social cost of carbon” into rules unless a federal law is enacted that allows its consideration.
Fifteen Democrats voted with almost all Republicans for the amendment, while three Republicans opposed it.
The amendment was tacked onto GOP legislation that allows the Energy Department to veto EPA rules with $1 billion or more in costs if the department determines they would harm the economy.
The amendment vote was the latest scuffle over the recent White House increase in the social cost of carbon, a metric of estimated damages caused by heat-trapping emissions.
[…]
But Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, called the amendment an assault on efforts to address dangerous climate change.
“The Murphy amendment denies that carbon pollution is harmful,” Waxman said ahead of the vote. “According to this amendment the cost of carbon pollution is zero.”
“That is science denial at its worst,” Waxman said.
Murphy’s amendment is part of wider GOP criticism of the increased social cost of carbon estimate. Click here, here and here for more coverage.
The underlying bill is slated to clear the House Thursday afternoon but faces dim prospects in the Democrat-led Senate.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/315091-house-votes-to-thwart-epa-on-social-cost-of-carbon#ixzz2albN594i
‘The Problem with the 10th Circuit’s Ruling in State of Oklahoma et al. v. EPA’
by William Yeatman on July 26, 2013
[…]
To be precise, EPA disapproved Oklahoma’s estimate of what BART controls would cost. Oklahoma calculated that scrubbers, a retrofit to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions, would cost $1.8 billion to install at six power plants. Based in part on this estimate, state officials deemed that scrubbers were too expensive to serve as Regional Haze BART.
EPA contested this conclusion by hiring an “independent” consultant. According to this “independent” consultant, Oklahoma’s accounting was improper, and the actual cost of installing the six scrubbers was half what the Sooner State claimed it was—about $900 million.
[…]
I followed the case closely, and I thought it would be a slam dunk for Oklahoma. For starters, the State won a stay preventing EPA’s implementation of its Regional Haze rule while the court deliberated the case. This is always a good sign for the petitioners. More importantly, the previous case law made it clear that States get to choose BART. It seemed obvious that EPA had engineered a rationale to impose the controls it preferred. It is, after all, EPA policy under the current administration to see that all coal-fired power plants in the U.S. are retrofitted with scrubbers.
So I was a bit shocked when the 10th Circuit delivered a ruling last Friday that supported EPA’s takeover of Oklahoma’s Regional Haze authority. My shock turned to dismay after I read the majority (2-1) opinion. Here’s why: The decision’s logic rested on the credibility of EPA’s consultant.
About that “Independent” Consultant…
http://www.globalwarming.org/2013/07/26/the-problem-with-the-10th-circuits-ruling-in-state-of-oklahoma-et-al-v-epa/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+globalwarmingorg+%28GlobalWarming.org%29
>”About that “Independent” Consultant…”
[quoting Yeatman]
“EPA’s consultant—Dr. Phyllis Fox—is anything but independent. Her resume demonstrates that she’s a go-to litigation witness for the Sierra Club”
A Record of Being Wrong
Most damning of all is that fact that Dr. Fox’s cost analysis has been proven wrong on the very subject that the 10th Circuit was considering.
As I noted above, she performed as an “independent” consultant for EPA in New Mexico and North Dakota, in addition to Oklahoma. In New Mexico, state officials estimated that BART for the San Juan Generating Station would cost $730 million; Dr. Phyllis Fox claimed it cost $340 million. And based on this, EPA disapproved New Mexico’s plan and imposed a Regional Haze federal plan in its stead. PNM subsequently solicited bids to actually build the technology. The utility received two bids, and the cheapest was $750 million!
Long story short: Congress wanted States to call the shots on Regional Haze. EPA justified a disapproval of Oklahoma’s Regional Haze plan based on the work of a supposedly “independent” consultant, who, in fact, is biased. More to the point, this “independent” witness has been proven wrong in a parallel situation that, in a logical world, would undermine her credibility.
It was a close decision, with two judges siding against one. The dissenting judge, moreover, was forceful. So I’ve not lost all hope of successful appeal.
EPA Endangerment Finding:
By Ken Haapala, Executive Vice President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
The US Solicitor General, Department of Justice, and EPA attorneys filed their petition to the US Supreme Court requesting that it deny the petition from the group in which SEPP participates asking for the court to review the decision by the US Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the EPA Endangerment Finding (EF) that greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), endanger public health or welfare.
[…summary of petition case…]
As stated previously, the Court’s decision on whether or not to hear the case will be on legal grounds, not scientific grounds. Unable to link to the EPA petition at this time.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/28/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-97/#more-90565
Note: this is a different petition to the SLF petition which is on scientific grounds,
DOE’s Social Cost of Carbon Mischief (My Comment Letter in Support of Landmark Legal Foundation’s Petition)
by Marlo Lewis
http://www.globalwarming.org/2013/09/17/does-social-cost-of-carbon-mischief-my-comment-letter-in-support-of-landmark-legal-foundations-petition/
‘Nebraska’s Climate Scientists Afraid Of The Truth’
By Paul Homewood
[…]
“If it’s only natural (causes), but not human, we would not be interested,” [Martha Shulski, climatologist and director of the High Plains Regional Climate Center]
As the study of natural climate cycles seems to be beneath these “scientists”, perhaps I might offer my services. All the data is readily available from NOAA, so let’s start with precipitation.
[…]
The above plot suggests cycles of about 30 years in length, and this cycle, and its effects, are well known amongst scientists – the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, or AMO.
[…]
It is easy to see why Nebraska’s climatologists are so afraid to publish this sort of analysis, as it totally undermines their warnings of armageddon, at least on a local scale.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/10/27/nebraskas-climate-scientists-afraid-of-the-truth/
‘PHOTOS: It’s snowing around the NFL’
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24368708/photos-its-snowing-around-the-nfl
Check out the catch gif at bottom of page.
[NOAA Nov 21, 2013] “…warmer-than-average temperatures this winter are expected from the Desert Southwest into the Southern Plains and Deep South.”
[Steven Goddard] “Two weeks later, the US appears headed for possibly the coldest December on record”
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/noaa-calls-for-a-warm-winter-in-the-south/
We the Geeks: “Polar Vortex” and Extreme Weather | The White House
Here at the White House, while we’re beginning to thaw from this week’s bone-chilling deep freeze, our discussions about the science of weather extremes are heating up.
We know that no single weather episode proves or disproves climate change. Climate refers to the patterns observed in the weather over time and space – in terms of averages, variations, and probabilities. But we also know that this week’s cold spell is of a type there’s reason to believe may become more frequent in a world that’s getting warmer, on average, because of greenhouse-gas pollution.
Join us this Friday, January 10th at 2:00 p.m. ET for We the Geeks: “Polar Vortex” and Extreme Weather, for a conversation with leading meteorologists, climate scientists, and weather experts about why temperatures dipped to such frigid lows this week, how weather experts turn raw data into useful forecasts, and what we know about extreme weather events in the context of a changing climate.
Cristin Dorgelo and resident polar-science expert Brendan Kelly from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will moderate the live discussion, to include:
* Stephanie Abrams, The Weather Channel
* Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd, President of the American Meteorological Society and Professor, University of Georgia
* Jim Overland, Arctic researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
* Jason Samenow, Capital Weather Gang’s chief meteorologist and the Washington Post’s Weather Editor
* Bernadette Woods Placky, Emmy-award winning Meteorologist at Climate Central
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/01/08/we-geeks-polar-vortex-and-extreme-weather
>[The White House] – “…..this week’s cold spell is of a type there’s reason to believe may become more frequent in a world that’s getting warmer, on average, because of greenhouse-gas pollution.”
In “recent years” cold spells have increased (i.e. since around 2007/08/09)
‘The Global Warming-Extreme Weather Link’
A Review Of The State Of Science
Madhav L. Khandekar
• Cold weather extremes have definitely increased in recent years; for example, the
severe winters in Europe (2012/13, 2011/12, 2009/10) and North America (2012/13,
2007/08). There have also been colder winters in parts of Asia (2012/13, 2002/03)
and South America (2007, 2010 and 2013).
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2013/11/Khandekar-Extreme-Weather.pdf?vsmaid=374
But the world has NOT been “getting warmer, on average” this century (see page 17).
So recent cold spells cannot be “because of greenhouse-gas pollution”.
>”But the world has NOT been “getting warmer, on average” this century (see page 17)”
Alternative 21st century graph, with trend stats, here:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/clip_image014_thumb.jpg?w=602&h=324
We the Goofs | The White House
‘Scientists: Americans are becoming weather wimps’
By SETH BORENSTEIN January 9, 2014 5:33 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) — We’ve become weather wimps.
As the world warms, the United States is getting fewer bitter cold spells like the one that gripped much of the nation this week. So when a deep freeze strikes, scientists say, it seems more unprecedented than it really is.
http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-americans-becoming-weather-wimps-215318927.html
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/scientists-americans-are-becoming-weather-wimps
>”As the world warms” – Huh? There it is again.
>”…seems more unprecedented than it really is” – Good grief!
What they’ve done is average out all the record lows by including the warm States like California. Here’s a list just of the Tuesday of the cold snap:
‘List of record low temperatures set Tuesday’
Doyle Rice, USA TODAY 4:06 p.m. EST January 7, 2014
At least 49 daily record lows were set across the country Tuesday morning, thanks to a fierce cold snap that’s bringing the coldest weather in decades to portions of the central, eastern and southern USA.
Bitterly cold air straight from the Arctic, courtesy of the polar vortex, will continue to shatter records through Tuesday and into early Wednesday before moderating temperatures return by Thursday and Friday.
A list of low-temperature records broken Tuesday morning:
Alabama
4 in Huntsville: Previous record low 5
7 in Birmingham: Previous record low 11
14 in Mobile: Previous record low 18
More (another 13 States) >>>>>>
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/01/07/weather-polar-vortex-cold/4354945/
Anne commenting at Yahoo:
“Yeah, well, those climate scientists calling us wimps are welcome to our fair city in Northern MN where they can experience for themselves just what -50F windchill feels like! For days on end.”
Sen. Inhofe on Obama’s Global Warming Claims: ‘The President Just Made that Up’
By Craig Bannister
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) told a Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee hearing today that the president must have fabricated two oft-repeated climate claims.
“Both statements are false,” Sen. Inhofe said of Obama’s global warming claims, since neither the EPA nor the U.N. IPCC climate group can provide any supporting statistics:
“On multiple occasions, and most recently on May 30th of last year, President Obama has said, and this is a quote he has used several times, he said that ‘the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even ten years ago’ and that ‘the climate is warming faster than anybody anticipated five or ten years ago.’
“Both statements are false, and through letters to you, Ms. McCarthy, and on the record in this Committee, we’ve asked the EPA to provide us with the data backing up these two statements, the two statements made by the president, but they don’t have any data and referred us to the UN IPCC. And, their scientists, apparently, the EPA thought they were the source of this.
“Well, we went there and they had nothing to back it up, so apparently the president just made that up.
>>>>>>>>>>
http://www.cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/craig-bannister/sen-inhofe-obamas-global-warming-claims-president-just-made
Steve Goddard claims 1deg.C warming per century trend has been added to US temperature record by NOAA. As Goddard says, FOIA time. Reminds me of a certain NZ data set.
‘A look at the behind the scenes legal battle with the EPA over the ‘social cost of carbon’ and looming carbon tax’
Posted on February 24, 2014 by Anthony Watts
WUWT has been granted exclusive first access to this new legal document [comment from Francis J. Menton, Jr. Attorney at Law] challenging the EPA’s proposed use of calculations on SCC.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/02/24/a-look-at-the-behind-the-scenes-legal-battle-with-the-epa-over-the-social-cost-of-carbon-and-looming-carbon-tax/
Menton letter, Re: OMB request for public comments (“Request for Comments”)
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/ef_omb_menton_letter022014final.pdf
Anthony Watts has lifted (without attribution):
“The three lines of evidence used by the EPA are A. B. and C.”
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/amicus_epa4.jpg?w=562&h=573
That jpg is copied from the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) et al’s Petition for a writ of certiorari. The brief is asking the Supreme Court to consider their (SLF’s) scientific argument that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) CO2 Endangerment Finding be dropped because of scientific and legal errors. See this thread re SLF Petition (up-thread from this current comment):
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/open-threads/climate/regions/usa/#comment-213952
‘House passes bill to block Obama climate plan’
By MATTHEW DALY / Associated Press / March 6, 2014
WASHINGTON (AP) — Aiming at the heart of President Barack Obama’s strategy for fighting climate change, the Republican-controlled House voted Thursday to block the administration’s plan to limit carbon pollution from new power plants.
The bill targets Obama’s proposal for the Environmental Protection Agency to set the first national limits on heat-trapping carbon pollution from future power plants. It’s part of the GOP’s election-year strategy to fight back against what Republicans call a ‘‘war on coal’’ by the Obama administration.
The bill passed by a 229-183 vote. Ten Democrats, mostly from coal-producing states or the South, joined Republicans in support of it. Three Republicans opposed the bill.
A similar measure is pending in the Senate but faces a more difficult path.
More>>>>>>>
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2014/03/06/house-gop-moves-block-epa-rules-power-plants/7rzPqBvqjCuT7S4AhJrOaK/story.html
Examiner Editorial: Chevron win in Ecuador case is huge defeat for Big Green, trial lawyers
By Washington Examiner | MARCH 7, 2014
It was lost among the week’s more dramatic news in Ukraine and Lois Lerner’s continued refusal to tell America and a congressional committee what she knows about the IRS scandal, but U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan landed a devastating blow against greenmail. That’s what can happen when Big Green environmental activists and class-action lawyers combine forces to use the federal court system to shake down corporate defendants for billions of dollars, usually via out-of-court settlements. Kaplan’s ruling concerned Big Oil giant Chevron on one side and New York trial lawyer Steve Donziger on the other.
[…]
Chevron fought Donziger until an Ecuadorian judge ruled against the oil company. In the course of its appeals, Chevron discovered how far Donziger and his Big Green accomplices had gone to win. As a result, Chevron filed a separate suit accusing Donziger and others of fraud. Kaplan provided an amazing description in his 500-page ruling in Chevron’s favor:
“They submitted fraudulent evidence. They coerced one judge, first to use a court-appointed, supposedly impartial, “global expert” to make an overall damages assessment and, then, to appoint to that important role a man whom Donziger hand-picked and paid to “totally play ball” … They then paid a Colorado consulting firm secretly to write all or most of the global expert’s report, falsely presented the report as the work of the court-appointed and supposedly impartial expert, and told half-truths or worse to U.S. courts in attempts to prevent exposure of that and other wrongdoing. Ultimately, [Donziger’s team] wrote the [Ecuadorian] court’s judgment themselves and promised $500,000 to the Ecuadorian judge to rule in their favor and sign their judgment. If ever there were a case warranting equitable relief with respect to a judgment procured by fraud, this is it.”
The Colorado firm Kaplan mentioned is Stratus Consulting, which since 2009 has received more than $180 million via 1,308 federal contracts including 811 through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
More>>>>>>>
Supreme Court Of The United States (SCOTUS) Blog [Bloomberg Law]
Southeastern Legal Foundation v. Environmental Protection Agency
Issue: Whether EPA permissibly determined that its regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles triggered permitting requirements under the Clean Air Act for stationary sources that emit greenhouse gases.
Linked with:
Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency
Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency
Pacific Legal Foundation v. Environmental Protection Agency
American Chemistry Council v. Environmental Protection Agency
Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. Environmental Protection Agency
Energy-Intensive Manufacturers Working Group on Greenhouse Gas Regulation v. Environmental Protection Agency
Texas v. Environmental Protection Agency
Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. Environmental Protection Agency
Date, Proceedings and Orders
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/southeastern-legal-foundation-v-environmental-protection-agency/
May 23 2013 Brief amici curiae of Scientists filed.
I. The Conclusion That EPA Drew From Its Three Lines Of Evidence Is Demonstrably Invalid…. 7
A. First Line Of Evidence: EPA’s GHG Fingerprint (Or Hot Spot) Theory …………. 9
B. Second Line Of Evidence: The Purported Unusual Rise In GAST ………. 13
C. Third Line Of Evidence: Climate Models ……………………………………………… 16
II. Serious Deficiencies In EPA’s Process Contributed To Its Scientific Errors …………. 21
http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/GW-Amicus-2013-05-23-Br-of-Amici-Curiae-Scientists-ISO-Petitions-fo….pdf
Last entry to date: Feb 24 2014
Southeastern Legal Foundation v. Environmental Protection Agency
Opinion [hotlink to pdf, link below], Jun 23, 2014
Holding: The Clean Air Act neither compels nor permits the Environmental Protection Agency to adopt an interpretation of the Clean Air Act requiring a stationary source of pollution to obtain a “Prevention of Significant Deterioration” or Title V permit on the sole basis of its potential greenhouse-gas emission. However, EPA reasonably interpreted the Clean Air Act to require sources that would need permits based on their emission of chemical pollutants to comply with “best available control technology” for greenhouse gases.
Judgment: Affirmed in part, reversed in part, 9-0, in an opinion by Justice Scalia on June 23, 2014. Justice Scalia announced the judgement of the Court and delivered an opinion, Parts I and II of which were for the Court. Justice Thomas and Justice Alito joined the opinion as to Parts I, II-A, II-B-1, and Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, Justice Sotomayor and Justice Kagan joined as to Part II-B-2. Justice Breyer filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Justice Ginsburg, Justice Sotomayor, and Justice Kagan joined. Justice Alito filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Justice Thomas joined.
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/southeastern-legal-foundation-v-environmental-protection-agency/
Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency
From Wikipedia
In a fractured decision, the Court largely upheld the ability of the EPA to regulate greenhouse emissions
Opinion of the Court
Justice Scalia authored the majority opinion, which Justices Roberts and Kennedy joined in full. The Court ruled that the EPA can regulate greenhouse emissions on power plants and other large stationary sources of pollution, but the agency overstepped its authority when it started to use those same regulations on smaller stationary sources like shopping centers, apartment buildings and schools
Justice Breyer wrote a concurring/dissenting opinion, joined by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Breyer argued that the EPA should have been allowed to interpret the “any air pollutant” language broadly to also include greenhouse emissions: “I do not agree with the Court that the only way to avoid an absurd or otherwise impermissible result in these cases is to create an atextual greenhouse gas exception to the phrase ‘any air pollutant’.”[11]
Alito, joined by Thomas, wrote a second concurring/dissenting opinion, arguing that the EPA should not be able to regulate the larger sources of greenhouse emissions either using those regulations: “The Clean Air Act was developed for use in regulating the emission of conventional pollutants and is simply not suited for use with respect to greenhouse gases.”[12] He cited two scenarios of incompatibility between greenhouses gases and normal pollutants, which caused the EPA to eventually either declare that officials may disregard some provisions in the Act,[13] or give authorities “a great deal of discretion”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_Air_Regulatory_Group_v._Environmental_Protection_Agency
The petition (Scientist’s brief) appears to have been ignored, viz:
I. The Conclusion That EPA Drew From Its Three Lines Of Evidence Is Demonstrably Invalid
A. First Line Of Evidence: EPA’s GHG Fingerprint (Or Hot Spot) Theory
B. Second Line Of Evidence: The Purported Unusual Rise In GAST
C. Third Line Of Evidence: Climate Models
II. Serious Deficiencies In EPA’s Process Contributed To Its Scientific Errors
The full Opinion, which should detail consideration of the petition (or not), is here:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-1146_4g18.pdf
‘Everyone Declares Victory After Supreme Court’s EPA Ruling’
By Adam Chandler, Jun 23, 2014
http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/06/everyone-declares-victory-after-supreme-courts-epa-ruling/373232/
Twitter comments, bottom of article:
America’s Power @AmericasPower
Pretend impact worth more than real people? Enviros view those hurt by #EPA regs as acceptable “collateral damage.” http://fxn.ws/1nxI3l9
3:28 AM – 24 Jun 2014
Leads to this article:
‘In Team Obama’s world US workers are ‘collateral damage’ to green agenda’
By Stephen Moore
One of the leading leftwing environmentalists last week described the hundreds of thousands of Americans who may lose their jobs due to the Obama administration’s new anti-carbon regulations as “collateral damage” in the fight against global warming. The offensive comments were issued by William S. Becker, the head of the Climate Action Project, a well-funded environmental group.
In his piece in the Huffington Post praising the new Environmental Protection Agency regulations to stop climate change, he lamented that “there is nothing explicit in the [Obama] plan to mitigate or adapt to the economic disruption the clean energy transition will cause for coal and oil-country families.” He said that the pain and suffering to the estimated 200,000 families put out of work is an “evolutionary step in technology and the economy” and a move toward “economic progress.” Mr. Becker wants more government programs to help the “disrupted” families, as though yet another government job training program will solve the problem that these workers’ lives have been turned upside down. Perhaps this is what the left means by “environmental justice.”
The “let them eat cake” attitude may strike readers as unbelievably offensive and cavalier. Imagine the outcry if a Republican referred to middle class job losers as acceptable “collateral damage.” The story would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country and if Mr. Becker were the head of an industry group he would almost surely be facing intense pressure to resign. But Mr. Becker is at least giving an honest assessment of the negative impact of the radical anti-carbon lobby’s crusade on middle class families.
The job losses in the coal mining, oil and drilling, construction and trucking industries are acceptable to the left climate change zealots, especially if it means the U.S. will take a mostly symbolic step to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. One study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce finds that the new EPA regulations will destroy 200,000 mostly blue collar energy jobs, reduce the U.S. GDP by about $50 billion a year and cost families thousands of dollars over the next decade in higher energy costs. The workers who will be harmed live in places like Wheeling, West Virginia and Bakersfield, California and hundreds of energy industry towns in between.
Will voters in these areas tolerate these disruptions to their lives? Will they accept that they are”colletaral damage” to the radical green movement? We will see.
Stephen Moore is a Fox News contributor. He serves as chief economist at the Heritage Foundation.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/06/20/in-team-obama-world-us-workers-are-collateral-damage-to-green-agenda/
‘No One Left Behind in Coal Country’
William S. Becker, Executive Director, Presidential Climate Action Project
[…]
When we speak about environmental justice, the term usually refers to the people of the world who are being hit hardest by climate change, but who are least responsible for it and least able to cope. They are the people of poor nations who bear no responsibility for the carbon in the atmosphere today, but who are suffering the heaviest consequences of global warming. We in the industrial world are enjoying the comforts and conveniences of fossil fuels while billions in the world are suffering the damages.
Similarly, there are issues of economic justice that seem as threatening to coal families as flooding is in Bangladesh or famine is to families in Sudan. It is not the fault of generations of soft-rock miners that the coal they provided turns out to be damaging us in ways we are just beginning to see. Yet they will suffer some of the greatest economic impact as the nation’s coal use declines.
While it is ridiculous to accuse President Obama of warring against coal, it is fair to ask what his climate action plan can do to ensure that America’s transition to clean energy is compassionate and just.
The plan President Obama announced a year ago contains several directives designed to help communities hit hardest by the physical impacts of climate change. In a sentence in the middle of Page 13, he directs that “through annual federal agency Environmental Justice Progress Reports, the Administration will continue to identify innovative ways to help our most vulnerable communities prepare for and recover from the impacts of climate change.” On Page 14 he directs that “federal agencies will report on the impacts of climate change on other key sectors and strategies to address them, with priority efforts focusing on health, transportation, food supplies, oceans, and coastal communities”.
However, there is nothing explicit in the plan to mitigate or adapt to the economic disruption the clean energy transition will cause for coal- and oil-country families. We know that economic disruptions are part of progress. They are the collateral damage of every evolutionary step in technology or the economy.
More>>>>>>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-s-becker/no-one-left-behind-in-coa_b_5480910.html
‘Supreme Court Revives EPA Rule on Air Pollution Across State Lines’
Court’s 6-2 Ruling Is Victory for Obama Administration; 28 States Will Have to Reduce Power-Plant Emissions
[…]
In court papers, the EPA said upwind states can be significant contributors to pollution problems in downwind locations, citing New Haven, Conn., where the agency said 93% of the ozone pollution comes from out-of-state emissions.
“Required to balance the possibilities of under-control and over-control, EPA must have leeway in fulfilling its statutory mandate,” Justice Ginsburg wrote. She added that if a state concludes it has been forced to reduce emissions below the relevant threshold, it could file a narrower lawsuit based on a particular grievance instead of seeking wholesale invalidation of the EPA’s effort.
Justice Antonin Scalia signaled strong disagreement with the ruling by reading parts of his dissent from the bench, saying EPA hadn’t followed the approach set forth by Congress. “Today’s decision feeds the uncontrolled growth of the administrative state at the expense of government by the people,” he said. Justice Clarence Thomas joined Justice Scalia in dissent.
More>>>>>
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304163604579531594097453658
Podesta: Congress Can’t Stop Obama On Global Warming
Written by Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller on May 06 2014.
House adviser John Podesta told reporters Monday afternoon that Congress could not derail the Obama administration’s efforts to unilaterally enact policies to fight global warming.
Podesta said that the president was committed to using executive orders to pass regulations under the Clean Air Act to limit carbon dioxide emissions that they say cause global warming.
“They may try, but there are no takers at this end of Pennsylvania Avenue,” Podesta told reporters at a Monday press conference at the White House.
Republicans and some Democrats in Congress have urged the Obama administration to scale back their climate goals because of the adverse impact of new regulations on the coal industry. Coal supporters have portrayed the administration’s actions as the “war on coal” due to huge job losses in coal states like Kentucky and West Virginia.
“We’re getting the living crap beaten out of us,” West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin told President Obama’s nominee to be the country’s top energy regulator last year. “There has been nothing more beat up than coal.”
“They just beat the living daylights out of little West Virginia, but they sure like what we produce,” Manchin told former nominee Ron Binz. “We could do it a lot better if we had a government working with us as a partner.”
>>>>>
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/podesta-congress-can-t-stop-obama-on-global-warming.html
EPA Chief Promises To Go After Republicans Who Question Agency Science
Michael Bastasch, The Daily Caller
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Gina McCarthy has issued a warning to Republicans who continue to question the integrity of the agency’s scientific data: we’re coming for you.
McCarthy told an audience at the National Academy of Sciences on Monday morning the agency will go after a “small but vocal group of critics” who are arguing the EPA is using “secret science” to push costly clean air regulations.
“Those critics conjure up claims of EPA secret science — but it’s not really about EPA science or secrets. It’s about challenging the credibility of world renowned scientists and institutions like Harvard University and the American Cancer Society,” McCarthy said, according to Politico.
“It’s about claiming that research is secret if researchers protect confidential personal health data from those who are not qualified to analyze it — and won’t agree to protect it,” she added. “If EPA is being accused of secret science because we rely on real scientists to conduct research, and independent scientists to peer review it, and scientists who’ve spent a lifetime studying the science to reproduce it — then so be it.”
Republicans Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana and Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas have led the charge on pressing the EPA to make publicly available the scientific data behind its clean air regulations. McCarthy promised she would make such data publicly available during her confirmation process last year. Now her refusal to cough up the data has angered Republicans.
“EPA’s leadership is willfully ignoring the big picture and defending EPA’s practices of using science that is, in fact, secret due to the refusal of the agency to share the underlying data with Congress and the American public,” said Vitter.
“We’re not asking, and we’ve never asked, for personal health information, and it is inexcusable for EPA to justify billions of dollars of economically significant regulations on science that is kept hidden from independent reanalysis and congressional oversight,” Vitter added.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/28/epa-chief-promises-to-go-after-republicans-who-question-agency-science/#ixzz3102sNEn4
‘Integrity and Objectivity: The Shaken Pillars of Environmental Science’
Jul 10, 2014 | Rachelle DeJong
In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency began classifying greenhouse gases as pollutants and regulating their emissions. That meant that normal economic activities—tilling a small farm, running a local store—that produced normal amounts of the naturally occurring vapor became potentially subject to EPA standards and, for those that exceeded the limits, crushing fines of up to $37,500 per day.
The EPA’s authority to regulate emissions, though, rests on shaky legal and environmental grounds. A small nonprofit of indomitable determination, the Institute for Trade, Standards, and Sustainable Development (ITSSD) has set itself the task of finding out whether the EPA has been telling the truth. NAS, as an academic organization that seeks to promote rigorous science and open debate, and as an interested observer of the way the EPA’s findings become the basis for college campus sustainability initiatives, has a stake in promoting accountability and transparency. EPA pronouncements find their way into campus offices of sustainability, greenhouse gas reduction plans, and sustainability tracking sheets. If ITSSD’s investigations discredit the EPA’s pronouncements, colleges and university should guard the integrity of their environmental commitments and verify the EPA’s findings before acting on them.
More >>>>> Redefinitions, Peer Review, FOIA
http://www.nas.org/articles/integrity_and_objectivity_the_shaken_pillars_of_environmental_science
The Chain of Environmental Command: How a Club of Billionaires and Their Foundations Control the Environmental Movement and Obama’s EPA
United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Minority Staff Report, July 30, 2014
http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/07-30-2014%20Collusion%20Report.pdf
BREAKING: Senate Committee Report Details Environmentalists’ Inner Workings
http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisprandoni/2014/07/30/breaking-senate-committee-report-details-environmentalists-inner-workings/
Shock U.S. Senate Report: Left-Wing ‘Billionaire’s Club’ Using Environmentalism to Control the US Economy and Subvert Democracy
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/07/30/Shock-US-Senate-Minority-Report
Breaking: The (Leftist) Billionaire Boys Club
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/07/breaking-the-leftist-billionaire-boys-club.php
TANGLED WEB: U.S. Senate Releases Report Showing Collusion Between EPA, Billionaires, and Far-Left Enviros
http://coloradopeakpolitics.com/2014/07/30/tangled-web-u-s-senate-releases-report-showing-collusion-between-epa-billionaires-and-far-left-enviros/
MEMORANDUM
To: Senate Democrats
From: Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray
Re: The impact of climate change on the federal budget
Date: Friday, August 1, 2014
The scientific consensus on climate change and the human activity that contributes to it is well established.1 Unprecedented levels of heat-trapping emissions—primarily carbon dioxide—cause temperatures to climb, altering weather patterns, triggering a rise in sea levels, and creating the conditions for more frequent and intense extreme weather events. Scientists continue to conduct research into the wide-ranging projected effects of climate change, but it is clear that climate change will dramatically impact the health and wellbeing of families and communities across the
country.2
A less-noted consequence of climate change, which also underscores the need to act, is its impact on the federal budget. Climate change, if left unaddressed, will both weaken economic growth and impose additional direct budgetary costs on the federal government. As a result, climate change poses an increasing threat to the federal government’s already challenging long-term fiscal outlook.
Continues (15 pages) >>>>>>>
http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1238946/senate-budget-committee-caucus-memo-on-federal.pdf
‘Leaked Memo Gives Away Dems’ ‘Extreme Weather’ Talking Points’ [refer previous comment]
by Michael Bastasch
Democratic claims that “extreme weather” was becoming more common as carbon dioxide levels increase have been disputed by scientists who say the data tells a different story.
“It is misleading and just plain incorrect to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally,” University of Colorado climate scientist Dr. Roger Pielke said in his testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last year. “It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.”
“Hurricanes have not increased in the U.S. in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1900,” Pielke added. “The same holds for tropical cyclones globally since at least 1970.”
But Democrats have not relented in their push to convince the public that extreme weather will continue to get worse.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/01/leaked-memo-gives-away-dems-extreme-weather-talking-points/#ixzz39HXmrW49
‘A Dozen States File Suit Against New Coal Rules’
By CORAL DAVENPORT, AUG. 1, 2014
WASHINGTON — Twelve states filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration on Friday seeking to block an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate coal-fired power plants in an effort to stem climate change.
The plaintiffs are led by West Virginia and include states that are home to some of the largest producers of coal and consumers of coal-fired electricity
[…]
The suit was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The other plaintiffs are Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/business/a-dozen-states-file-suit-against-new-coal-rules.html
Not quite climate but……
‘Fed Up With Govt Misconduct, Federal Judge Takes Nuclear Option’
Federal Prosecutor Alleges Boss Pressured Him To Engage in ‘Unethical Conduct’; Judge Calls Abuses ‘Egregious,’ ‘Pervasive,” and “Reprehensible”
By Sidney Powell | 10/15/14 9:45pm
In perhaps the most stunning documentation yet of abuses by Eric Holder’s Justice Department, two former Assistant United States Attorneys spoke to defense attorneys and revealed appalling deceit and corruption of justice. This latest litigation time bomb has exploded from multi-million dollar litigation originally brought by the Department of Justice against Sierra Pacific based on allegations that the lumber company and related defendants were responsible for a wildfire that destroyed 65,000 acres in California.
In what was dubbed the “Moonlight Fire” case, the tables are now turned. The defendants have discovered new evidence and filed a stunning motion. The new evidence and disclosures are being taken seriously by the Chief Judge of the Eastern District of California—as they should be. In a shocking action, Judge Morrison C. England Jr. ordered the recusal of every federal judge in the Eastern District of California.
[…]
The Sacramento Bee reported on the Defendant’s filing. Indeed, the Defendants’ motion informs us that a former Assistant United States Attorney came forward and disclosed that he believes that he was removed from the original prosecution by “his boss, David Shelledy, chief of the civil division in the United States Attorney’s office,” because he “rebuffed” pressure to “engage in unethical conduct as a lawyer.” Of course, like other former prosecutors who were unethical, Mr. Shelledy is to receive Attorney General Holder’s highest award for excellence—this week.
Read more at http://observer.com/2014/10/fed-up-with-govt-misconduct-federal-judge-takes-nuclear-option/#ixzz3GdBPoaCW
‘Dem. Congressman on Witch Hunt Against Climate Scientists’
10:13 AM, Feb 25, 2015 • By MARK HEMINGWAY
On his blog this morning, Roger Pielke Jr. at the University of Colorado, a respected climate scientist, reveals that he was one of seven academics being being investigated by Rep. Raul Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources. Grijalva wants to know all university financial disclosure policies that are applicable to Pielke, detailed information about any sources of external funding and grants he may have received, as well as any communications related to external funding. He also wants copies of any speeches and testimony before lawmakers Pielke has delivered, as well as salary and travel expense information.
You can read Grijalva’s full letter to CU here [hotlink], but per the letter, here is Pielke’s supposed crime:
“Prof. Roger Pielke, Jr., at CU’s Center for Science and Technology Policy Research has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress on climate change and its economic impacts. His 2013 Senate testimony featured the claim, often repeated, that it is “incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.”
According to Pielke, this is nothing but a witch hunt: [hotlink]
More>>>>.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/rep-raul-grijalvas-shameful-witch-hunt-against-climate-scientists_866050.html
[Pielke, see link above] – “The letter goes on to note that John Holdren, President Obama’s science advisor, “has highlighted what he believes were serious misstatements by Prof. Pielke.”
‘Shocking letter of intimidation from Congressman to MIT re climate skeptic Richard Lindzen’
Posted on February 25, 2015 by JunkScience.com
‘Democrat’ Congressman Raul Grijalva closes in on 1933 Germany, and the Soviet Union.
Here’s the letter from Rep. Raul Grijalva (Comrade-Ariz.) to the president of MIT [hotlink].
Check out Rep. Grijalva’s background with the Communist Party USA [hotlink].
http://junkscience.com/2015/02/25/shocking-letter-of-intimidation-from-congressman-to-mit-re-climate-skeptic-richard-lindzen/
‘Republican Senators Seek Detailed Answers on EPA Climate Change Science, Modeling’
By Patrick Ambrosio, Bloomberg BNA
April 1 — Four Republican senators are seeking additional information from the Environmental Protection Agency on the science linking climate change to drought, hurricanes and increased temperatures, including an analysis of climate change modeling results.
In an April 1 letter, Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) asked EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to defend recent statements that there have been more frequent and more intense hurricanes and droughts and detail whether climate models have accurately predicted temperature increases.
The questions stem from a March 4 hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the EPA’s fiscal year 2016 budget request.
During that hearing, Republican members of the committee asked McCarthy several questions about climate change, including a line of questioning from Sessions on increasing global soil moisture, fewer major hurricanes in recent years and other data points that he suggested don’t support the existence of climate change.
In the letter, the senators said that none of the “clear and straightforward” questions on climate science asked during the hearing were directly answered by McCarthy. The senators asked McCarthy to provide data and analysis comparing Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate models with actual global average temperatures.
“Given that the Administration’s proposal to fundamentally change the nature of domestic energy generation is based on the apparent need to avoid `devastating’ climate impacts to the United States and the planet, it is imperative that the agency be candid and forthright in assessing the reality of this projection,” the senators said.
The letter requested that the EPA respond no later than April 21.
[…]
At the March budget hearing, Sessions asked McCarthy to cite specific evidence that climate change modeling has proven to be correct. After McCarthy asked Sessions to clarify which models he was referring to, Sessions said it was “stunning” that the head of the EPA doesn’t know about climate modeling.
Temperature Rise Comparison Requested
In the letter, Sessions and the other senators requested that McCarthy provide an EPA-produced chart comparing the actual global average temperature increases with the predictions derived from IPCC climate models.
Additionally, the senators asked the EPA to detail the steps the agency has taken to review the accuracy of climate projections and how much of the EPA’s fiscal 2016 budget request of $8.6 billion would be allocated to monitoring the accuracy of climate projections.
http://www.bna.com/republican-senators-seek-n17179924903/
# # #
April 1 — Heh! Impeccable timing.
Sessions, Inhofe, Wicker and Barrasso poking a bit of borax the way of McCarthy and the EPA. May as well have some fun at their expense, imagine the wriggling and squirming going on there.
Full Sessions/Inhofe/Wicker/Barrasso/EPW letter to McCarthy/EPA here:
http://www.globalwarming.org/2015/04/03/epw-republicans-to-mccarthy-is-epa-climate-science-consistent-with-data/
Examples:
Drought
1. In its 2013 Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded the following:
“[T]here is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century, owing to lack of direct observations, geographical inconsistencies in the trends, and dependencies of inferred trends on the index choice. [….snip…]”
Do you agree or disagree with the IPCC’s conclusion? Please provide all data, analyses, and other evidence that you reviewed and relied on to reach your conclusion.
Hurricanes/cyclones
1. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report concluded the following:
“Current data sets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century. . . . No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin.”
Do you agree or disagree with the IPCC assessments regarding data sets on global tropical cyclone frequency and trends in annual tropical storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes in the North Atlantic basin?
[and see 2 – 5]
Temperature data
1. Dating back to the 1970’s, IPCC climate models have historically predicted a significant increase in global temperatures. At the March 2015 budget hearing, Senator Sessions asked “[i]f you take the average of the models predicting how fast the temperature would increase, is the temperature in fact increasing less than that or more than that?”
You replied that you could not “answer that question specifically,” but later committed to submitting written information explaining whether you believe the models have been proven correct and whether temperatures have increased less than projected or more than projected.
Please provide data and analyses showing actual global average temperatures since 1979 versus IPCC predictions, including an EPA-produced chart comparing actual global average temperature increases since 1979 (when satellite temperature data became available) versus the latest IPCC predictions. Please also provide your conclusion on whether IPCC climate models have proven correct.
[and see 2]
Climate impact monitoring
[see 1]
2. What portion of EPA’s budget request for FY 2016 is dedicated to monitoring and verifying the accuracy of the agency’s climate projections?
RC,
“Do you agree or disagree with the IPCC’s conclusion?”
It is deeply gratifying that somebody backing the alarmist side is being asked questions like these in a forum which requires them to make answers that will be scrutinised. Who would have thought that the seminal debate on climate science might take place on a political stage? Thank God for even the similitude of democracy. I should raise your comments to a post, but when? Family calls again today, so I’ll see.
>”Family calls again today”
Yes, heed the call. Climate can do whatever it pleases in the meantime, as it always has.
‘Open Letter to U.S. Senators Ted Cruz, James Inhofe and Marco Rubio’
Bob Tisdale / April 14, 2015
Subject: Questions about Climate Model-Based Science
From: Bob Tisdale – Independent Climate Researcher
To: The Honorable Ted Cruz, James Inhofe and Marco Rubio
Dear Senators Cruz, Inhofe and Rubio:
I am writing you as chairs of the Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and of the Committee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard. I am an independent researcher who studies global warming and climate change, and I am probably best known for my articles at the science weblog WattsUpWithThat, where I would be considered an investigative reporter.
I have a few very basic questions for you about climate model-based science. They are:
# Why are taxpayers funding climate model-based research when those models are not simulating Earth’s climate?
# Why are taxpayers funding climate model-based research when each new generation of climate models provides the same basic answers?
# Redundancy: why are taxpayers funding 5 climate models in the U.S.?
# Why aren’t climate models providing the answers we need?
Example: Why didn’t the consensus of regional climate models predict the timing, extent and duration of the Californian drought?
I have discussed and provided support for those concerns in the following.
Note: I began this letter a couple of months ago, back when it was announced that you would be chairs of those committees. Two of you are now running for President. Even with that in mind, I hope that you and your staffs will consider these questions.
Questions follow>>>>>
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/14/open-letter-to-u-s-senators-ted-cruz-james-inhofe-and-marco-rubio/
Legal Challenges to EPA Regulating CO2 Begin
April 21, 2015, Senate Republican Policy Committeee
# The D.C. Circuit heard oral arguments challenging EPA regulating CO2.
# In the consolidated cases, 15 states and the nation’s largest privately owned coal producer raised the first of many legal objections against the rule.
# The president’s 2016 budget requests $52 million to hire lawyers to defend the rule.
More>>>>>
http://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/legal-challenges-to-epa-regulating-co2-begin
‘Obama and the environment: Clean power or power play?’
Written by Richard O. Faulk, The Hill on 24 April 2015.
Recently, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals heard one of the strangest cases ever argued in a federal appellate court – a seemingly esoteric controversy that, in any other context, might be relegated to obscurity. But since winning this case is the linchpin President Obama needs to win the “War Against Coal,” the EPA has staked everything on pulling an oversized rabbit out of a very small hat.
Cue State of West Virginia v. EPA and Murray Energy v. EPA, two joined cases comprising the first challenge to the president’s recent efforts to cement his climate change legacy. Fifteen states, along with select coal companies, have sued for an “extraordinary writ” to prevent the EPA from promulgating new carbon regulations set to be finalized this summer.
This legal imbroglio began with the president’s desire to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from coal-fired electrical power plants. CO2 is the principal “greenhouse gas” blamed for global warming. As such, it is now the focus of the most aggressive EPA action under the Clean Air Act since its passage decades ago.
Last year, as part of the president’s proposed Clean Power Plan, the EPA began drafting rules expected to force states to curb emissions within a year – an onerous burden, as the states involved in Thursday’s challenge will likely agree. But it is also dubious from a federalism standpoint. The EPA claims the right to regulate emission concentrations “beyond the fence line” – without restricting its inquiries to amounts actually emitted from power plants. Thus, its authority would extend beyond power generators to consider dispatch and retail demand, areas historically regulated by the states, and not the federal government.
Beyond this unprecedented regulatory preemption of state authority lies an even greater and more dangerous overreach. The EPA’s argument confidently hinges on convincing the courts that the Clean Air Act doesn’t mean what it says. By its plain language, the bill prohibits the EPA from regulating the power plants from which these emissions derive. Moreover, coal plants are already addressed under an entirely different section of the bill than the one EPA insists justifies its new powers.
Under a less ambitious administration, that would be the end of the controversy. Instead, the EPA identified one of the most unusual Congressional oversights in American history to prove its position.
As the result of a “drafting error,” Congress actually passed two versions of the provision at issue, 111(d) – one which prohibits the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases from coal-fired power plants, and one which permits such regulation. The prohibitive version was published in the United States Code, while the permissive one was printed elsewhere. With a regulatory “sleight of hand,” the EPA now claims its right to a “deferential” interpretation of the Clean Air Act, and argues that the more permissive section should be applied.
If the EPA’s argument prevails, the consequences cannot be overstated. In spite of a lack of clear statutory authorization, this unelected body could take complete command of energy production and the manner by which it is used throughout the United States. Major components of our economy that have never before been affected by EPA regulation or the Clean Air Act may be subjected to its regulatory authority.
At least the Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress. Here, this vast new scheme has sprung full-grown from the president’s imagination.
Fortunately, the D.C. Circuit, and ultimately the Supreme Court, can still prevent this imperial power grab. Less than a year ago, in reviewing the scope of the EPA’s regulatory capabilities on greenhouse gases, the High Court expressed a “measure of skepticism” when the EPA discovered an “unheralded power to regulate” a “significant portion of the American economy.” The Court warned that it “expect[s] Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of ‘vast economic and political significance.’” To say the least, Congress has not done so here.
Obama, through his EPA, is acting beyond the scope of his authority – a persistent symptom that threatens the Constitutional separation and balance of powers that has protected our liberties since our Republic was founded. It is time, indeed past time, for our nation’s courts to pay heed and, echoing Chief Justice Marshall, once again stress “it is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Such a rebuke will remind the President that, despite his immense power, he cannot govern our democracy with imaginative strokes of his pen.
Faulk is a trial, appellate, energy and environmental lawyer. He is senior director for Energy, Natural Resources and the Environment for the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University School of Law and a partner with Hollingsworth, LLP, in Washington, DC.
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/obama-and-the-environment-clean-power-or-power-play.html
‘Gina McCarthy and Obama’s Totalitarians’
Shades of insane asylums for Soviet dissidents.
Jamie Glazov, June 25, 2015
Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov disappeared from public view in early May, 1984 after he had begun a hunger strike to get permission for his wife, Yelena Bonner, to travel to the U.S. for heart surgery. In the Soviet paradise, wanting one’s anti-Soviet wife to live, and, worse still, to be saved by evil capitalist surgeons and not by the holy surgeons of the Soviet utopia, was, clearly, an exercise in abnormal psychology.
Sakharov was undoubtedly “mentally ill.” No wonder, therefore, that Soviet authorities forcibly confined him in a closed ward of the Semashko Hospital in Gorky, where he was force-fed and given drugs to alter his state of mind. This is how Soviet authorities believed they would get the Soviet dissident to not only stop caring about his wife, but to also make a public recantation about his abnormal anti-Soviet views – a gambit in which they ultimately failed.
The Soviet system had a long and cruel record of perverting psychiatry to abuse political dissidents. Labelling many thought-criminals ”insane,” the communist regime institutionalized them under horrifying conditions in mental hospitals and force-fed them dangerous and mind-shattering drugs. Dissidents such as Pyotr Grigorenko, Joseph Brodsky, Alexander Esenin-Volpin, Vladimir Bukovsky and Natalya Gorbanevskaya were among the brave heroes who did not elude this grotesque form of Soviet barbarity. Grigorenko was forcibly committed to a special psychiatric hospital for criticizing the Khrushchev regime. Brodksy was sent to mental hospitals for not writing the right kind of poetry; his treatments involved “tranquilizing” injections, sleep deprivation and forced freezing baths. Esenin-Volpin was institutionalized in the Leningrad Special Psychiatric Hospital for his anti-Soviet thoughts. Bukovsky was also confined to the same psychiatric hospital for “anti-Soviet agitation.” Gorbanevskaya was committed to a psychiatric hospital for, among other “abnormality” crimes, attending the 1968 Red Square demonstration against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
And now enter the leftist totalitarians of the Obama stripe. While anti-Soviet ideas caused dissidents to be confined to psychiatric institutions in the Soviet Union, the soil is now being fertilized for the same process in the American leftist land of Alinskyite hope and change. Indeed, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy consoled leftists worldwide this past Tuesday, engaging in Soviet-style labeling vis-à-vis global warming dissidents that would have made Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov proud. Addressing an audience at a White House summit, she stated that “normal people,” and not climate skeptics, would win the debate on global warming. She made the comment in the context of why the EPA had issued a recent report on global warming’s negative impacts on public health, stressing that, “It’s normal human beings that want us to do the right thing, and we will if you help us.”
Continues>>>>>>
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/259184/gina-mccarthy-and-obamas-totalitarians-jamie-glazov
‘US Supreme Court blocks Obama’s limits on power plants’
ADAM LIPTAK and CORAL DAVENPORT, NYT, June 30, 2015
President Barack Obama suffers a defeat in the courts.
The US Supreme Court on Monday blocked one of the Obama administration’s most ambitious environmental initiatives: an Environmental Protection Agency regulation meant to limit emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants.
Industry groups and some 20 states had challenged the EPA’s decision to regulate the emissions, saying the agency had failed to take into account the punishing costs its rule would impose.
The Clean Air Act required the regulation to be “appropriate and necessary.” The challengers said the agency had run afoul of that law by deciding to regulate the emissions without first undertaking a cost-benefit analysis.
Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: “It is not rational, never mind ‘appropriate,’ to impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few dollars in health or environmental benefits. Statutory context supports this reading.”
[…]
The decision, Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 14-46, does not strike down the rule, but it means the EPA will have to review and rewrite it, taking costs into consideration. Industries will be expected to comply with the current rule until a revised one is issued.
More>>>>>
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/us-supreme-court-blocks-obamas-limits-on-power-plants-20150629-gi1224.html
Supreme Court to EPA: power plant regs do ‘more harm than good’
Written by Thomas Richard, Examiner.com on 29 June 2015.
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/supreme-court-to-epa-power-plant-regs-do-more-harm-than-good.html
‘State Dept’s $500 Million Transfer to the U.N.’
The United States Senate Republican Policy Committee
March 15, 2016
# Last week, the Obama administration transferred $500 million in U.S. funds to the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund.
# Congress never authorized the Green Climate Fund or any appropriations to it.
# The State Department must fully account for how it decided to give taxpayer dollars to a U.N. fund that
Congress never authorized.
Continues in detail>>>>>>>
http://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/state-depts-500-million-transfer-to-the-un
Everything You Need To Know Before Obama’s Global Warming Plan Goes To Court
Kevin Daley,Legal Affairs Reporter 8:05 AM 09/26/2016
Everything You Need To Know Before Obama’s Global Warming Plan Goes To Court
Kevin Daley,Legal Affairs Reporter 8:05 AM 09/26/2016
http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/26/everything-you-need-to-know-before-obamas-global-warming-plan-goes-to-court/